GENTLEMEN 
ROVERS 


E.ALEXANDER  POWELL 


GENTLEMEN   ROVERS 


Commodore  Truxtun  leaped  into  the  shrouds. 


GENTLEMEN 
ROVERS 


BY 

E.  ALEXANDER  POWELL,  F.R.G.S, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LAST  FRONTIER,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK::::::::::::::::::::::i9i3 


COPYRIGHT,  1913,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1913 


THE   FINEST   GENTLEMAN   I   KNOW 

MY    FATHER 


287955 


"There's  a  Legion  that  never  was  'listed, 
That  carries  no  colors  or  crest, 
But,  split  in  a  thousand  detachments, 
Is  breaking  the  road  for  the  rest. 

*  *  * 

The  ends  o'  the  Earth  were  our  portion, 
The  ocean  at  large  was  our  share, 
There  was  never  a  skirmish  to  windward 
But  the  Leaderless  Legion  was  there. 

*  *  * 

We  preach  in  advance  of  the  Army, 
We  skirmish  ahead  of  the  Church, 
With  never  a  gunboat  to  help  us 
When  we're  scuppered  and  left  in  the  lurch. 
But  we  know  as  the  cartridges  finish 
And  we're  filed  on  our  last  little  shelves, 
That  the  Legion  that  never  was  'listed 
Will  send  us  as  good  as  ourselves. 

*  *  * 

Then  a  health  (we  must  drink  it  in  whispers) 
To  our  wholly  unauthorized  horde- 
To  the  line  of  our  dusty  foreloopers, 
To  the  Gentlemen  Rovers  abroad!" 

— The  Lost  Legion. 


FOREWORD 

THIS  book  is  written  as  a  tribute  to  some  men 
who  have  been  overlooked  by  History  and  for 
gotten  by  Fame.  Though  they  won  for  us  more 
than  half  the  territory  comprised  within  our 
present-day  borders,  not  only  have  no  monuments 
been  erected  to  perpetuate  their  exploits  in  bronze 
and  marble,  but  they  lie  for  the  most  part  in  for 
gotten  and  neglected  graves,  some  of  them  un 
der  alien  skies.  Boyd,  Truxtun,  Eaton,  Reed, 
Lafitte,  Smith,  Ide,  Ward,  Walker — even  their 
names  hold  no  significance  for  their  country 
men  of  the  present  generation,  yet  they  played 
great  parts  in  our  national  drama.  After  two 
decades  of  history-making  in  Hindustan,  Boyd 
came  back  to  his  own  country  and  ably  sec 
onded  William  Henry  Harrison  in  breaking  the 
power  of  the  great  Indian  confederation  which 
threatened  to  check  the  white  man's  westward 
march.  When  both  France  and  England  were 
our  enemies,  and  the  gloom  of  despondency  hung 
like  a  cloud  over  the  land,  it  was  Truxtun  and  his 

vii 


Foreword 

bluejackets  who  put  new  heart  into  the  nation 
by  their  victories.  Eaton  and  his  motley  army 
marched  across  six  hundred  miles  of  African  des 
ert,  and  by  bringing  the  Barbary  despots  to  their 
knees  accomplished  that  which  had  been  unsuc 
cessfully  attempted  by  every  naval  power  in 
Europe.  Captain  Reed,  of  the  General  Armstrong, 
after  holding  off  a  British  force  twenty  times  the 
strength  of  his  own,  sunk  his  vessel  rather  than 
surrender.  To  a  pirate  and  smuggler  named 
Jean  Lafitte,  more  than  any  other  person  save 
Andrew  Jackson,  we  owe  our  thanks  for  saving 
New  Orleans  from  capture  and  Louisiana  from 
invasion.  Jedediah  Smith  blazed  the  route  of  the 
Overland  Trail  and  showed  us  the  way  to  Cali 
fornia,  and  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  Fremont, 
Ide,  Sloat,  and  Stockton  made  the  land  beyond 
the  Sierras  ours.  William  Walker  came  within 
an  ace  of  changing  the  map  of  Middle  America, 
and  made  the  name  of  American  a  synonym  for 
courage  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  Panama,  while 
on  the  other  side  of  the  world  another  American, 
Frederick  Townsend  Ward,  raised  and  led  that 
ever  victorious  army  whose  exploits  were  General 
Gordon's  chief  claim  to  fame.  There  was  not  one 
of  these  men  of  whom  we  have  not  reason  to  be 
proud.  But  because  they  did  their  work  unoffi- 

viii 


Foreword 

cially,  in  what  might  aptly  be  described  as  "shirt 
sleeve  warfare,"  and  because  they  went  ahead 
without  waiting  for  the  tardy  sanction  of  those 
who  guided  our  ship  of  state,  the  deeds  they  per 
formed  have  never  received  befitting  recognition 
from  those  who  follow  by  the  trails  they  made, 
who  grow  rich  from  the  mines  that  they  discov 
ered,  who  dwell  upon  the  lands  they  won.  And 
that  is  why  I  am  going  to  ask  you,  my  friends,  as 
in  the  following  pages  I  lead  these  forgotten  heroes 
before  you  in  imaginary  review,  to  raise  your 
hats  in  respect  and  admiration  to  this  company 
of  brave  soldiers  and  gallant  gentlemen  who  so 
stoutly  upheld  American  prestige  and  American 
traditions  in  many  far  corners  of  the  world. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOR  RENT:   AN  ARMY  ON  ELEPHANTS      ...  i 

WHEN  WE  FOUGHT  NAPOLEON 19 

WHEN  WE  CAPTURED  AN  AFRICAN  KINGDOM    .  45 

THE  LAST  FIGHT  OF  THE  "GENERAL  ARMSTRONG"  73 

THE  PIRATE  WHO  TURNED  PATRIOT    ....  89 

THE  MAN  WHO  DARED  TO  CROSS  THE  RANGES  125 

THE  FLAG  OF  THE  BEAR 153 

THE  KING  OF  THE  FILIBUSTERS 179 

CITIES  CAPTURED  BY  CONTRACT 217 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Commodore  Truxtun  leaped  into  the  shrouds     .  Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


The  death  of  Tippo-Sahib  at  the  storming  of  Seringa- 

patam 12 

The  battle  of  Tippecanoe 16 

The  frigate  Philadelphia  ran  aground  in  the  harbor  of 
Tripoli,  the  Tripolitans  capturing  Captain  Bain- 
bridge  and  his  entire  crew 54 

But  even  in  those  days  the  fame  of  American  gunners 

was  as  wide  as  the  seas 86 

The  battle  of  New  Orleans 120 

Westward  pressed  the  little  troop  of  pioneers,  across  the 

sun-baked  lava  beds  of  southwestern  Utah    .     .     .     136 

The  Sacramento  Valley  in  1845 164 

General  William  Walker  and  his  men,  after  a  long  and 
stormy  voyage,  landing  at  Virgin  Bay,  en  route  to 
Costa  Rica 196 

General  Walker  reviewing  troops  on  the  Grand  Plaza, 

Granada 200 

xiii 


Illustrations 


PAGE 


The  programme  was  always  the  same:  the  sudden  rush 
of  the  filibusters  with  their  high,  shrill  yell;  the 
taking  of  the  barracks  and  the  cathedral  in  the 
Plaza 206 

"Come  on,  boys!"  shouted  Ward.  "We're  going  in!" 
and  plunged  through  the  narrow  opening,  a  revol 
ver  in  each  hand 230 


FOR  RENT:  AN  ARMY  ON  ELEPHANTS 


FOR  RENT:  AN  ARMY  ON  ELEPHANTS 

THE  pitiless  Indian  sun  had  poured  down 
upon  the  Hyderabad  maidan  until  its  sandy 
surface  glowed  like  a  stove  at  white  heat.  Drawn 
up  in  motionless  ranks,  which  stretched  from  end 
to  end  of  the  great  parade-ground,  was  a  division 
of  cavalry:  squadron  after  squadron  of  scarlet- 
coated  troopers  on  sleek  and  shining  horses;  row 
after  row  of  brown  and  bearded  faces  peering 
stolidly  from  under  the  white  turbans.  The  rays 
of  the  sun  danced  and  sparkled  upon  ten  thou 
sand  lance-points;  the  feeble  breeze  picked  up 
ten  thousand  pennons  and  fluttered  them  into  a 
white-and-scarlet  cloud.  Now  and  then  the  silence 
would  be  broken  by  a  clash  of  steel  as  a  horse 
tossed  its  head  or  a  sowar  stirred  uneasily  in  his 
saddle.  Sitting  a  white  Arab,  a  score  of  paces 
in  advance  of  the  foremost  rank,  very  stiff  and 
soldierly  in  his  gorgeous  uniform,  was  a  tall  young 
man  whose  ruddy  cheeks  and  pleasant  eyes  looked 
strangely  out  of  place  in  so  Oriental  a  setting. 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

From  somewhere  within  the  city  walls  a  bugle 
spoke  shrilly  and  was  answered  by  another  and 
then  another,  each  nearer  than  the  one  preceding. 
The  young  man  in  the  splendid  uniform  barked 
an  order,  and  men  and  horses  stiffened  into  rigid 
ity  as  sharply  as  though  an  electric  current  had 
gone  through  them.  Through  the  twin-towered 
gateway  of  the  city  advanced  a  procession,  color 
ful  as  a  circus,  dazzling  as  a  durbar.  The  two 
figures  who  rode  at  the  head  of  the  glittering  cor 
tege  formed  an  almost  startling  contrast.  One  of 
them  answered  in  every  detail  the  popular  con 
ception  of  an  Asiatic  potentate:  haughty  of  man 
ner,  portly  of  person,  with  a  clear,  dark  skin  and 
wonderfully  piercing  eyes  and  a  great  black  beard, 
spreading  fan-wise  upon  his  breast.  An  aigret  of 
diamonds  flashed  and  scintillated  in  his  flame-col 
ored  turban;  rubies,  large  as  robin's  eggs,  gleamed 
in  his  ears,  and  hanging  from  his  neck  over  his 
pale  blue  surtout  was  a  rope  of  pearls  which  would 
have  roused  the  envy  of  an  empress.  His  com 
panion,  to  whom  he  paid  marked  attention,  was 
equally  noticeable,  though  in  quite  a  different 
fashion:  a  lean,  smooth-shaven,  lantern-jawed 
man,  still  in  the  middle  thirties,  very  cold  and 
reserved  of  manner,  with  a  great  beak  of  a  nose 
and  a  jaw  like  a  granite  crag.  It  did  not  need 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

the  cocked  hat  and  gold  epaulets  of  a  British 
general  to  mark  him  as  a  soldier. 

As  the  cortege  cantered  onto  the  maidan  the 
massed  bands  of  the  cavalry  burst  into  a  wild, 
barbaric  march,  brass  and  kettle-drums  crashing 
together  in  stirring  discord.  The  strains  ceased 
as  abruptly  as  they  began,  and  the  youthful  com 
mander,  rising  in  his  stirrups,  shot  his  blade  into 
the  air  and  called  in  a  voice  like  a  trumpet: 

"Cheers  for  his  Highness!" 

And  back  came  a  guttural  roar  from  ten  thou 
sand  throats: 

"Long  live  the  Nizam!" 

Obviously  gratified  at  the  warmth  of  his  greet 
ing,  the  ruler  of  the  Deccan  wheeled  his  horse  and 
came  cantering  up  to  the  cavalryman,  whose 
sword  flashed  in  salute. 

"Boyd  Sahib,"  he  said,  "you  are  a  veritable 
magician.  You  turn  ryots  into  soldiers  as  read 
ily  as  a  fakir  turns  a  stone  into  bread.  Your  men 
are  admirable.  I  congratulate  you  on  their  ap 
pearance." 

Then,  turning  to  his  taciturn  companion: 

"Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  permit  me  to  present  to 
you  Boyd  Sahib,  commander  of  my  cavalry  and 
my  trusted  friend.  General  Boyd,"  he  added, 
glancing  at  the  Englishman  with  a  malicious 

5 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

smile,  "is  a  very  brilliant  soldier — and  an  Amer 


ican." 


Thus  met,  when  the  nineteenth  century  was 
still  in  its  swaddling-clothes,  two  extraordinary 
men:  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  who  in  later  years, 
as  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  was  to  gain  undying 
fame  by  conquering  Napoleon;  and  General  John 
Parker  Boyd,  an  American  soldier  of  fortune,  who 
rendered  most  gallant  service  to  his  own  people, 
but  whose  very  name  has  been  forgotten  by  them. 

Jack  Boyd,  as  his  boyhood  companions  in  New- 
buryport  used  to  call  him,  was  born  with  the 
spirit  of  adventure  strong  within  him.  Almost 
before  he  had  graduated  from  dresses  to  knee- 
trousers  he  would  linger  about  the  wharfs  of 
the  quaint  old  town,  drinking  in  the  stories  of 
strange  places  and  stranger  doings  told  him  by 
the  seafarers  who  were  wont  to  congregate  along 
the  water-front,  or  staring  wistfully  at  the  big, 
black  merchantmen  about  to  sail  for  foreign  parts. 
He  was  wont  to  say  that  it  was  a  perverse  and 
unkind  fate  which  caused  him  to  be  born  in  so 
inauspicious  a  year  as  1764,  for,  though  there 
was  no  more  ardent  youngster  in  all  New  Eng 
land,  his  youth  caused  the  recruiting  sergeants  of 
the  Continental  Army  to  whom  he  applied  for 

6 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

enlistment  to  pat  him  on  the  shoulder  and  re 
mark  encouragingly:  "Come  again,  son,  when 
you're  a  few  years  older/' 

Thus  it  was  that  he  saw  unroll  before  him  that 
marvellous  moving-picture  of  the  birth  of  a  na 
tion,  which  began  on  the  greensward  at  Lexing 
ton  and  ended  before  the  British  lines  at  York- 
town,  without  being  able  to  play  any  greater  part 
in  those  stirring  events  than  does  a  spectator  in 
the  thrilling  scenes  which  he  pays  his  five  cents 
to  see  depicted  on  a  screen.  Indeed,  a  twelve 
month  passed  after  the  last  British  soldier  left 
our  shores  before  young  Boyd  achieved  the  am 
bition  of  his  life  by  obtaining  an  ensign's  com 
mission  in  the  2d  Regiment  of  Foot  and  donned 
the  blue  coat  and  buff  breeches  of  an  officer  in 
the  American  army.  Although  within  a  year  he 
had  been  promoted  to  lieutenant,  his  was  not  the 
temperament  which  could  long  endure  the  mo 
notony  of  garrison  life,  with  its  unending  round 
of  guard-mounting  and  small-arms  practice  and 
company  drill.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at, 
therefore,  that  before  the  gold  braid  on  his  lieu 
tenant's  uniform  had  time  to  tarnish  he  had 
handed  in  his  papers  and  had  booked  passage  on 
an  East  Indiaman  sailing  out  of  Boston  for  Ma 
dras.  The  year  1788,  then,  saw  this  youngster  of 

7 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

four-and-twenty  landed  on  the  coast  of  Coroman- 
del,  poor  in  acquaintances  and  pocket  but  rich 
in  adventurousness  and  pluck. 

He  could  have  taken  his  military  talents  to 
no  better  market,  for  at  this  period  of  India's 
troubled  history  a  brilliant  career  awaited  a  man 
whose  wits  were  as  sharp  as  his  sword.  The  last 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  found  all  In 
dia  ablaze  with  racial  and  religious  hatred.  Wars 
were  as  frequent  as  strikes  are  in  the  United 
States.  Though  the  French  were  still  supreme 
in  the  south  of  the  peninsula,  the  English  power 
was  steadily  rising  in  Bombay,  Calcutta,  and 
Madras.  There  were  really  two  distinct  strug 
gles  in  progress:  the  English  were  fighting  the 
French  and  the  Hindus  were  fighting  the  Moham 
medans.  The  most  powerful  of  the  native  princes 
at  this  time  were  the  Nizam  of  Hyderabad,  and 
the  Peishwa,  as  the  ruler  of  the  Mahratta  tribes 
was  called — both  of  whom  had,  for  reasons  of  pol 
icy,  espoused  the  English  cause — and  Tippoo  Sa 
hib,  the  son  of  a  Mohammedan  military  adven 
turer  who  had  made  himself  Sultan  of  Mysore, 
who  was  an  ally  of  the  French.  Ranged  on  the 
one  side,  then,  were  the  British,  with  their  allies, 
the  Nizam  and  the  Peishwa,  while  opposed  to 
them  were  the  French  and  Tippoo  of  Mysore. 

8 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

All  of  the  reigning  princes  of  India  maintained 
extensive  military  establishments,  and  soldiers  of 
fortune  found  at  their  courts  rapid  promotion 
and  lavish  pay.  When  Boyd  landed  in  India  he 
was  confronted  with  the  problem  which  of  the 
rival  causes  he  should  make  his  own,  and  it  speaks 
well  for  his  sagacity  and  foresight  that  he  promptly 
decided  to  offer  his  services  to  the  allies  of  the 
English,  for  at  that  time  most  students  of  politics, 
in  India  and  out  of  it,  believed  that  the  future  of 
the  peninsula  was  to  be  Gallic  rather  than  Anglo- 
Saxon. 

From  Madras  Boyd  made  his  way  on  horseback 
to  the  Mahratta  country,  where  his  attractive  per 
sonality  and  soldierly  appearance  so  impressed  the 
Peishwa  that  he  gave  the  young  American  the 
command  of  a  cavalry  brigade  of  fifteen  hundred 
men.  Boyd  was  now  in  possession  of  the  raw 
material  for  which  he  had  hankered,  and  he  forth 
with  proceeded  to  show  his  extraordinary  skill  in 
welding,  tempering,  and  sharpening  it.  From 
daybreak  until  dark  his  camp  resounded  to  the 
call  of  bugles,  the  words  of  command,  and  the 
clatter  of  galloping  hoofs.  He  hammered  his  men 
into  shape  as  a  blacksmith  hammers  a  bar  of 
iron,  until  they  combined  the  inflexible  discipline 
of  Prussian  foot-guards  with  the  mobility  and 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

endurance  of  Texas  rangers.  His  chance  to  test 
the  quality  of  his  handiwork  came  in  1790,  when 
Tippoo  Sultan,  failing  in  his  attempt  to  bring  on 
a  renewal  of  the  war  between  England  and  France, 
turned  loose  his  hordes  and  overran  the  land.  In 
the  three  years'  war  which  followed,  the  British, 
under  Lord  Cornwallis,  who  was  striving  to  re 
gain  in  India  the  reputation  he  had  lost  at  York- 
town,  were  aided  by  the  Mahrattas  and  the  Nizam, 
who  were  induced  by  fear  and  jealousy  to  join 
in  the  struggle  against  their  powerful  neighbor. 
Thus  Opportunity  knocked  sharply  on  Boyd's 
door.  Commanding  a  body  of  as  fine  horsemen 
as  ever  threw  leg  across  saddle,  his  name  quickly 
became  a  synonym  for  audacity  and  daring.  Ri 
ding,  wholly  without  support,  into  the  very  heart 
of  Tippoo's  dominions,  he  would  strike  a  series 
of  paralyzing  blows,  burn  a  dozen  towns,  capture 
or  destroy  immense  stores  of  ammunition,  exact 
a  huge  indemnity,  and  be  back  in  his  own  terri 
tory  again  before  any  troops  could  be  brought 
up  to  oppose  him.  Boyd's  flying  columns  played 
no  small  part,  indeed,  in  the  campaign  which 
ended  in  1792  with  the  defeat  of  Tippoo — a  de 
feat  for  which  the  Sultan  had  to  pay  by  ceding 
half  his  dominions,  paying  an  indemnity  of  three 
thousand  lacs  of  rupees  (one  hundred  million  dol- 

10 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

lars),  and  giving  his  two  sons  as  hostages  for  his 
future  good  behavior. 

Boyd,  meanwhile,  had  never  let  slip  an  oppor 
tunity  for  improving  his  knowledge  of  Hindu 
stani  and  its  kindred  dialects  or  familiarizing  him 
self  with  the  complex  conditions,  racial,  religious, 
and  political,  which  prevailed  in  Hindustan. 
Realizing  that  the  Mahratta  power  was  on  the 
wane,  he  resigned  from  the  service  of  the  Peishwa, 
and,  bearing  letters  of  the  highest  commendation 
from  that  ruler  to  the  British  envoy  at  the  court 
of  the  Nizam,  he  turned  his  horse's  head  toward 
Hyderabad.  In  a  letter  to  his  father,  written  at 
this  time,  he  says:  "On  my  arrival  I  was  pre 
sented  to  his  Highness  in  form  by  the  English 
consul.  My  reception  was  as  favorable  as  my 
most  sanguine  wishes  had  anticipated.  After 
the  usual  ceremony  was  over  he  presented  me 
with  the  command  of  two  kansolars  of  infantry, 
each  of  which  consists  of  five  hundred  men." 
Continuing,  he  described  in  detail  the  army  of 
the  Nizam,  which  at  that  time  consisted  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  infantry,  sixty  thou 
sand  cavalry,  and  five  hundred  elephants,  each 
of  which  bore  a  "castle"  containing  a  nabob  and 
his  attendants.  Can't  you  picture  the  scene  when 
that  letter,  with  its  strange  foreign  postmarks, 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

reached  the  old  brick  house  in  the  quaint  New 
England  town;  how  the  parents  read  and  re-read 
that  message  from  the  son  who  was  adventuring 
in  foreign  parts,  and  how  the  neighbors  dropped  in 
of  evenings  to  hear  the  latest  news  of  the  boy  they 
all  knew,  who  was  carving  out  a  career  with  his 
sword  half  the  world  away?  Success  is,  after  all, 
a  rather  tasteless  thing  if  there  are  no  home  folks 
to  rejoice  in  it. 

Fortuna,  that  capricious  beauty  whose  favor  so 
many  brave  men  have  sought  in  vain,  seemed  to 
have  lost  her  heart  to  the  stalwart  American,  for 
in  1799,  when  Tippoo  and  his  savage  soldiery  once 
more  broke  loose  and  swept  across  the  peninsula, 
leaving  a  trail  of  corpses  and  burning  villages  be 
hind  them,  the  Nizam,  recalling  the  tales  he  had 
heard  of  Boyd's  exploits  as  a  cavalry  leader,  gave 
him  the  command  of  a  division  of  ten  thousand 
turbaned  troopers.  Nor  did  the  fair  goddess  de 
sert  him  even  when  he  was  captured  by  a  body 
of  Mysore  horsemen,  taken  before  Tippoo  Sahib 
himself,  and,  upon  his  stoutly  refusing  to  turn 
traitor  to  the  Nizam,  condemned  to  death  by 
torture.  And  the  torturers  of  the  tyrant  of  My 
sore  bore  a  most  evil  reputation.  Overpower 
ing  the  sentries  who  were  set  to  guard  him,  he 
succeeded  in  making  his  way,  thanks  to  his  flu- 

12 


The  death  of  Tippo-Sahib  at  the  storming  of  Seringapatam. 

From  a  painting  by  R.  de  Moraine. 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

ency  in  Hindustani,  through  the  enemy's  lines, 
rejoining  the  Nizam's  forces  in  time  to  take  part 
in  the  storming  of  the  Sultan's  capital  of  Serin- 
gapatam,  Tippoo  being  killed  in  a  hand-to-hand 
struggle  after  a  last  stand  at  the  city  gates.  Thus 
died,  as  he  would  have  wished — with  his  boots 
on — the  most  dangerous  adversary  with  whom 
Britain  had  to  contend  in  the  winning  of  her 
Eastern  empire. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  Boyd,  who,  as 
the  result  of  the  generous  rewards  he  had  received 
from  his  royal  employers,  had  by  this  time  become 
possessed  of  considerable  means,  left  the  service 
of  the  Nizam,  much  against  the  wishes  of  that 
monarch,  and  organized  an  army  of  his  own. 
Numerically,  it  wasn't  much  of  an  army,  as  armies 
go,  having  at  no  time  exceeded  two  thousand 
men,  but  it  was  as  businesslike  a  force  as  ever 
responded  to  a  bugle.  Boyd,  whose  reputation 
as  a  cavalry  leader  extended  from  Bengal  to  Mala 
bar,  had  the  horsemen  of  all  India  to  draw  from, 
and  he  recruited  nothing  but  the  best,  the  men 
with  whom  he  filled  his  ranks  being  as  hard  as 
nails  and  as  keen  as  razors.  His  second  in  com 
mand  was  an  Irish  soldier  of  fortune  named  Wil 
liam  Tone,  a  brother  of  Wolf  Tone,  the  famous 
rebel  patriot. 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

,  As  Boyd  reckoned  on  counterbalancing  the 
smallness  of  his  force  by  its  extreme  mobility,  he 
adopted  the  novel  expedient  of  transporting  his 
artillery  on  the  backs  of  elephants,  thus  making 
it  possible  for  the  guns  to  keep  pace  with  the 
cavalry  even  on  his  whirlwind  raids,  for  an  ele 
phant,  though  burdened  with  a  field-piece  and 
half  a  dozen  soldiers,  can  put  mile  after  mile  be 
hind  it  at  a  swinging,  ungainly  gait  which  it  will 
tax  any  horse  to  maintain.  Military  history  pre 
sents  no  more  fantastic  picture  than  that  of  this 
sun-tanned  Yankee  adventurer  spurring  across  an 
Indian  countryside  with  a  brigade  of  beturbaned 
lancers  and  a  score  or  so  of  lumbering  elephants, 
the  muzzles  of  brass  field-guns  frowning  from 
their  howdahs,  tearing  along  behind  him.  What 
a  pity  that  the  folk  in  Newburyport  could  not 
have  seen  him! 

The  entire  outfit — elephants,  horses,  cannon, 
and  weapons — was  Boyd's  personal  property,  and 
he  rented  it  to  those  princes  who  had  need  of 
and  were  able  to  pay  for  its  service  precisely  as 
a  garage  rents  an  automobile.  The  prices  he  ob 
tained  for  it  were  enormous,  and  ere  long  he 
became  a  wealthy  man.  From  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other  he  led  his  scarlet-coated 
mercenaries,  selling  their  services  in  turn  to  his 

14 


For  Rent;    An  Army  on  Elephants 

former  employers,  the  Nizam  and  the  Peishwa, 
and  to  the  rulers  of  Gwalior  and  Indore. 
When  a  force  was  needed  for  a  particularly  des 
perate  service  or  for  a  hopeless  hope  they  sent 
for  Boyd.  And  he  always  delivered  the  goods. 
Fighting  was  going  on  everywhere,  and  he  never 
lacked  employment.  But  he  was  far  too  discern 
ing  not  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  power  of 
England  was  steadily,  if  slowly,  increasing,  and 
that  her  complete  domination  of  India,  which 
could  not  much  longer  be  delayed,  must  inevi 
tably  put  an  end  to  independent  soldiering  as  a 
profitable  profession.  In  1808,  therefore,  he  sold 
his  army,  elephants  and  all,  to  Colonel  Felose, 
a  Neapolitan  who  had  seen  service  under  many 
flags,  and  with  misted  eyes  and  a  choking  throat 
for  the  last  time  rode  along  the  lines  of  his  faith 
ful  troopers.  A  few  days  later  he  set  sail  for 
Paris,  for,  with  the  Corsican's  star  high  in  the 
heavens,  there  seemed  no  better  place  for  such  a 
man  to  seek  adventure  and  advancement.  Dis 
appointed  in  his  hope  of  obtaining  a  commission 
under  the  Napoleonic  eagles,  he  turned  his  face 
toward  home,  and  in  1810,  after  an  absence  of 
more  than  twenty  years,  he  felt  the  cobblestones 
of  his  native  Newburyport  beneath  his  feet  once 
more. 

Boyd's  adventurous  career  under  his  own  flag 

15 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

and  in  the  service  of  his  own  people  forms  quite 
another  though  a  scarcely  less  thrilling  story. 
Trained  and  experienced  officers  being  in  those 
days  few  and  far  between,  the  government  of 
fered  him  the  colonelcy  of  the  4th  Regiment  of 
Infantry,  which  he  promptly  accepted,  displaying 
such  energy  in  drilling  his  men  that  when  his 
regiment  marched  through  the  streets  of  Boston 
on  its  way  to  Pittsburg  the  local  papers  com 
mented  editorially  on  the  smartness  of  its  appear 
ance.  When  William  Henry  Harrison,  then  gov 
ernor  of  the  Territory  of  Indiana  (which  included 
the  present  States  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan, 
and  Wisconsin),  realizing  the  imperative  necessity 
of  smashing  the  great  Indian  confederation  which 
Tecumseh,  the  Shawnee  warrior-statesman,  was 
so  painstakingly  building  to  oppose  the  white 
man's  further  progress  westward,  called  for  troops 
to  do  the  business,  Boyd  put  his  men  on  flat- 
boats,  floated  them  down  to  the  falls  of  the  Ohio, 
and  marched  them  overland  to  Vincennes,  his 
dusty,  footsore  column  tramping  into  Harrison's 
stockaded  headquarters  almost  before  that  vet 
eran  frontiersman  had  realized  that  they  had 
started.  Boyd  was  in  direct  command,  under 
Harrison,  of  the  little  expeditionary  force  of  nine 
hundred  men  throughout  the  whirlwind  cam 
paign  which  culminated  on  a  drizzling  November 

16 


o   ? 


rs    3 

CJ         3 

<U       (X 

.11 


For  Rent:    An  Army  on  Elephants 

morning  in  1811  on  the  banks  of  the  Tippecanoe 
River.  Tippecanoe  was,  I  suppose,  the  only  bat 
tle  which  our  army  ever  fought  in  high  hats,  for 
the  absurd  uniform  of  the  American  infantry,  dis 
carded  a  few  months  later,  consisted  of  blue, 
brass-buttoned  tail-coats,  skin-tight  pantaloons, 
and  "stovepipe"  hats  with  red,  white,  and  blue 
cockades.  Though  taken  by  surprise  and  out 
numbered  six  to  one,  Boyd's  soldiery  showed  the 
result  of  their  training  by  standing  like  a  stone 
wall  against  the  onset  of  the  whooping  redskins, 
pouring  in  a  volley  of  buckshot  at  close  range 
which  left  the  hordes  of  warriors  wavering,  un 
decided  whether  to  come  on  or  to  retreat.  At 
this  psychological  moment  Boyd  ordered  up  the 
squadron  of  dragoons  which  he  had  been  holding 
in  reserve  for  just  such  an  opportunity.  "Right 
into  line!"  he  roared  in  the  voice  which  had  re 
sounded  over  so  many  fields  in  far-off  Hindustan. 
"Trot!  Gallop!  Charge!  Hip,  hip,  here  we 
go!"  It  was  the  charge  of  the  cavalry,  delivered 
with  all  the  smashing  suddenness  with  which  a 
boxer  delivers  a  solar-plexus  blow,  which  did  the 
businesSo  The  Indians,  panic-stricken  at  the  sight 
of  the  oncoming  troopers  in  their  brass  helmets 
and  streaming  plumes  of  horsehair,  broke  and  ran. 
Tippecanoe  was  won;  Harrison  was  started  on  the 
road  which  was  to  end  in  the  White  House;  the 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

peril  of  Tecumseh's  Indian  confederation  was 
ended  forever,  and  the  civilization  of  the  West 
was  advanced  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

In  the  following  year,  upon  the  outbreak  of  our 
second  war  with  England,  Boyd,  who  had  been 
commissioned  a  brigadier-general,  commanded  a 
division  of  Wilkinson's  army  in  the  abortive 
American  invasion  of  Upper  Canada,  and,  on 
November  n,  1813,  fought  the  drawn  battle  of 
Chrysler's  Field.  "Taps"  were  sounded  to  his 
picturesque  career  on  October  4,  1830.  He  died, 
not  as  he  would  have  wished,  sword  in  hand  at 
the  head  of  charging  squadrons,  but  quite  peace 
fully  in  his  bed,  holding  the  prosaic  position  of 
port  officer  of  Boston,  to  which  post  he  had  been 
appointed  by  that  other  gallant  fighter,  President 
Andrew  Jackson.  As  the  end  approached  I  doubt 
not  that  in  mind  he  was  far  away  from  the  brick 
and  plaster  of  the  New  England  city,  and  that 
his  thoughts  harked  back  to  those  mad,  glad  days 
when  he  and  his  lancers  rode  across  the  plains  of 
Hindustan  and  his  elephants  rocked  and  rolled 
behind  him. 


18 


WHEN  WE  FOUGHT  NAPOLEON 


WHEN  WE  FOUGHT  NAPOLEON 

THIS  is  the  story  of  some  forgotten  fights  and 
fighters  in  a  forgotten  war.  The  govern 
ments  of  the  two  nations  which  did  the  fighting — 
France  and  the  United  States — refused,  indeed, 
to  admit  that  there  was  any  war  at  all,  and,  in  a 
sense,  they  were  right,  for  there  was  never  any 
declaration  of  hostilities,  and  there  was  never 
signed  a  treaty  of  peace.  But  it  was  a  very  real 
war,  nevertheless,  with  some  of  the  fiercest  battles 
ever  fought  on  deep  water,  and  when  it  was  over 
we  had  laid  the  foundations  of  a  navy,  we  had 
won  the  respect  of  the  European  powers,  and  we 
had  humbled  the  pride  of  Napoleon  as  it  had 
been  humbled  only  once  before,  when  Nelson 
annihilated  the  French  fleet  in  the  battle  of  the 
Nile. 

At  the  time  that  this  narrative  opens  Bona 
parte  had  just  finished  his  wonderful  campaign 
in  northern  Italy,  and  the  French  nation,  flushed 
with  confidence  by  his  remarkable  series  of  vic 
tories,  was  swaggering  about  with  a  chip  on  its 

21 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

shoulder,  and  defying  the  nations  of  the  world  to 
knock  it  off.  In  fact,  the  leaders  of  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  drunk  with  unaccustomed  power,  had  lost 
their  heads  as  completely  as  the  victims  whom 
they  had  guillotined  on  the  Place  de  la  Revolution. 
Thoroughly  typical  of  this  insolent  and  arrogant 
attitude  was  the  French  Directory's  peremptory 
demand  that  we  instantly  abrogate  the  treaty 
which  John  Jay,  our  minister  to  England,  had 
just  concluded  with  that  country,  basing  its  un 
warrantable  interference  with  our  affairs  on  the 
ground  that  the  terms  of  the  treaty  were  injurious 
to  the  commercial  interests  of  France.  Upon  our 
curt  refusal  to  accede  to  this  preposterous  de 
mand,  Charles  C.  Pinckney,  our  minister  at  Paris, 
was  notified  by  the  French  Government  that  it 
would  hold  no  further  intercourse  with  him,  and 
the  very  next  mail-packet  brought  the  news  that 
he  had  been  expelled  from  France.  Not  content 
with  this  extraordinary  and  uncalled-for  affront  to 
a  friendly  nation,  French  cruisers  began  seizing 
our  ships  under  a  decree  of  their  government  au 
thorizing  the  capture  of  neutral  vessels  having  on 
board  any  of  the  products  of  Great  Britain  or  her 
colonies,  for  at  this  time,  remember,  France  and 
England  were  at  war,  as  they  were,  indeed, 
throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  Napoleon's  reign. 
As  the  bulk  of  our  trade  at  this  period  was  with 

22 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

the  British  colonies  in  the  West  Indies,  it  was  evi 
dent  that  this  decree  was  aimed  directly  at  us. 
Every  packet  that  came  from  West  Indian  waters 
brought  news  of  American  ships  overhauled  and 
plundered,  of  sailors  beaten  and  kidnapped,  and 
of  cargoes  seized  and  confiscated  by  the  French, 
the  authenticated  despatches  to  the  State  Depart 
ment  naming  nearly  a  thousand  vessels  which  had 
been  captured.  So  bold  did  the  French  become 
that  one  of  their  privateers  actually  had  the 
audacity  to  sail  into  Charleston  Roads  and,  al 
most  under  the  guns  of  the  batteries,  to  burn  to 
the  water's  edge  a  British  vessel  which  was  lying 
in  the  harbor. 

Though  it  was  evident  that  nothing  short  of  a 
miracle  could  avert  war,  President  Adams,  appre 
ciating  the  ill-preparedness  of  the  United  States, 
which  had  only  recently  emerged  from  the  Revo 
lution  in  a  weakened  and  impoverished  condition, 
determined  to  make  one  more  try  for  peace  by 
despatching  to  France  a  special  mission  composed 
of  Minister  Pinckney,  Elbridge  Gerry,  and  John 
Marshall,  the  last-named  later  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States.  Though  in  all  our  diplomatic 
history  we  have  sent  abroad  no  more  able  or  dis 
tinguished  embassy,  the  reception  its  members 
received  at  the  hands  of  the  French  Government 
was  as  disgraceful  as  it  was  ludicrous.  The  French 

23 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Directory  at  this  time  was  composed  of  low  and 
irresponsible  politicians  of  the  ward-heeler  type 
who  had  climbed  to  power  during  the  French 
Revolution,  so  that,  incredible  as  such  a  state  of 
affairs  may  seem  in  these  days,  the  negotiations 
soon  degenerated  into  an  attempt  to  fleece  the 
American  envoys,  who  were  informed  quite  frankly 
that  their  success  depended  entirely  upon  their 
agreeing  to  bribe — or,  as  the  French  politely  put 
it,  to  give  a  douceur  to — certain  avaricious  mem 
bers  of  the  Directory.  Not  only  this,  but  the 
American  diplomatists  were  told  that,  if  the  bribes 
demanded  were  not  forthcoming,  orders  would  be 
given  to  the  war-ships  on  the  French  West  Indian 
station  to  ravage  the  coasts  of  the  United  States. 
The  chronicles  of  our  foreign  relations  contain 
nothing  which,  for  sheer  impudence  and  insult, 
even  approaches  this  attempt  to  levy  blackmail 
on  the  nation.  Even  the  astute  Talleyrand,  at 
that  time  French  Foreign  Minister,  so  far  mis 
judged  the  characters  of  the  men  with  whom  he 
was  dealing  as  to  insinuate  that  a  gift  of  money  to 
members  of  the  government  was  a  necessary  pre 
liminary  to  the  negotiations,  and  that  a  refusal 
would  bring  on  war.  Then  all  the  pent-up  rage 
and  indignation  of  Pinckney  burst  forth.  "War 
be  it,  then!"  he  exclaimed.  "Millions  for  defence, 
sir,  but  not  one  cent  for  tribute!"  , 

24 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

Upon  learning  of  this  crowning  insult  to  his 
representatives,  President  Adams,  on  March  19, 
1798,  informed  Congress  that  the  mission  on 
which  he  had  built  his  hopes  of  peace  had  proved 
a  failure.  Then  the  war-fever,  which  had  tem 
porarily  been  held  in  abeyance,  swept  over  the 
country  like  fire  in  dry  grass.  Talleyrand's  at 
tempt  to  whip  America  into  a  revocation  of  Jay's 
treaty  had  ignominiously  failed.  He  had  made 
the  inexcusable  mistake  of  underestimating  the 
spirit  and  resources  of  his  opponents.  Congress 
promptly  abrogated  all  our  treaties  with  France, 
prohibited  American  vessels  from  entering  French 
ports,  and  French  vessels  from  coming  into  Ameri 
can  waters,  and  voted  a  large  sum  for  national 
defence.  The  land  forces  were  increased,  the 
coastwise  fortifications  strengthened,  ships  of 
war  were  hurriedly  laid  down,  volunteers  from 
every  walk  of  life  besieged  the  recruiting  stations, 
Washington  reassumed  command  of  the  army. 
At  Portland,  Portsmouth,  Salem,  Chatham,  Nor 
wich,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore  the  shipyards 
resounded  to  the  clatter  of  tools,  for  those  were 
before  the  days  of  big  guns  and  armor-plate,  and 
a  man-of-war  could,  if  necessary,  be  built  and 
equipped  in  ninety  days. 

Out  from  behind  this  war-cloud  rose  the  thrill 
ing  strains  of  "Hail,  Columbia."  When  the  war- 

25 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

fever  was  at  its  height,  a  young  actor  and  singer 
named  Fox — a  vaudeville  artist,  we  should  call  him 
nowadays — who  was  appearing  at  a  Philadelphia 
theatre,  called  one  morning  on  his  friend  Joseph 
Hopkinson,  a  young  and  clever  lawyer,  and  a  son 
of  that  Francis  H.  Hopkinson  whose  signature 
may  be  seen  at  the  bottom  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

"Look  here,  Joe,"  said  Fox,  dropping  into  a 
chair,  "I  need  some  help  and  you're  the  only  man 
I  know  who  can  give  it  to  me.  No,  no,  old  man, 
it's  not  money  I'm  after.  To-morrow  night  I'm 
to  have  a  benefit  at  the  theatre,  but  not  a  single 
box  has  been  sold;  so,  unless  something  can  be 
done  to  attract  public  attention,  I'm  afraid  I  shall 
have  a  mighty  thin  house.  Now  it  strikes  me 
that,  with  all  this  war-fever  in  the  air,  if  I  could 
get  some  patriotic  verses,  something  really  fiery 
and  inspiriting,  written  to  the  tune  of  'The  Presi 
dent's  March,'  I  might  draw  a  crowd.  Several 
of  the  people  around  the  theatre  have  tried  it, 
but  they  have  all  given  it  up  as  a  bad  job,  and  say 
that  it  can't  be  done.  So  you're  my  last  hope, 
Joe,  and  I  think  you  could  do  it." 

Shutting  himself  up  in  his  study,  within  an  hour 
Hopkinson  had  completed  the  first  verse  and 
chorus  of  what  was  to  prove  one  of  the  greatest 
of  our  national  songs,  and  had  submitted  them  to 

26 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

his  wife,  who  sang  them  to  a  harpsichord  accom 
paniment.  The  tune  and  the  words  harmonized. 
A  few  hours  later  the  song  was  completed  and 
was  being  memorized  by  Fox.  The  next  morning 
Philadelphia  was  placarded  with  announcements 
that  that  evening  Mr.  Fox  would  sing,  for  the 
first  time  on  any  stage,  a  new  patriotic  song. 
The  house  was  packed  to  the  doors.  As  the  or 
chestra  broke  into  the  familiar  opening  bars  of 
"The  President's  March,"  and  Fox,  slender  and 
debonair,  bowed  from  behind  the  footlights,  the 
audience  grew  hushed  with  expectancy.  When 
the  now  familiar  words, 

"Immortal  patriots,  rise  once  more! 
Defend  your  rights,  defend  your  shore!" 

went  rolling  through  the  theatre  from  pit  to  gal 
lery,  the  audience  went  wild.  Eight  times  they 
made  him  sing  it  through,  and  the  ninth  time  they 
rose  and  joined  in  the  rousing  chorus: 

"Firm,  united  let  us  be, 
Rallying  round  our  Liberty. 
Like  a  band  of  brothers  joined, 
Peace  and  safety  we  shall  find." 

Night  after  night  the  singing  of  "Hail,  Columbia," 
in  the  theatres  was  applauded  by  audiences  de- 

27 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

lirious  with  enthusiasm,  and  within  a  few  days  it 
was  being  sung  by  boys  in  the  streets  of  every 
city  from  Portland  to  Savannah.  Never  since 
the  days  of  Bunker  Hill  had  the  nation  been  so 
stirred  as  it  was  in  that  summer  of  1798. 

On  July  6,  with  the  red-white-and-blue  ensign 
streaming  proudly  from  her  main  truck,  the  sloop 
of  war  Delaware,  twenty  guns,  of  Baltimore,  un 
der  Stephen  Decatur,  Sr.,  put  to  sea  to  an  ac 
companiment  of  booming  cannon.  Cape  Henry 
had  scarcely  sunk  below  the  horizon  before  she 
was  hailed  by  a  merchantman  which  had  been 
boarded  and  plundered  by  a  French  privateer  only 
the  day  before.  Upon  hearing  this  news  Decatur 
set  off  in  a  pursuit  as  eager  as  that  with  which  a 
bloodhound  follows  the  trail  of  a  fugitive  criminal. 
A  few  hours  later  his  lookouts  reported  four  ves 
sels  dead  ahead.  Being  unable  to  determine 
which  was  the  privateer,  he  ran  in  his  guns,  closed 
his  ports,  and  keeping  on  his  course  until  he  was 
sure  that  he  had  been  seen,  stood  hurriedly  off, 
as  though  afraid  of  being  captured.  Just  as  he 
had  anticipated,  the  Frenchman  fell  into  the  trap, 
and  piling  on  his  canvas,  bore  down  upon  him. 
It  was  not  until  the  privateersman  drew  close 
enough  to  make  out  the  gun-ports  and  the  un 
usual  number  of  men  on  the  American's  decks, 
that  he  discovered  Decatur's  ruse  and  attempted 

28 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

to  escape.  But  it  was  too  late.  The  Delaware's 
superior  speed  enabled  her  easily  to  overhaul  the 
Frenchman,  which  proved  to  be  La  Incroyable, 
fourteen  guns  and  seventy  men.  So  accurate  and 
deadly  was  the  fire  poured  into  her  by  the  Dela 
ware9  s  gunners  (forerunners,  remember,  of  those 
bluejackets  who  handle  the  twelve-inch  guns  on 
the  dreadnaught  Delaware  to-day)  that  within 
ten  minutes  after  the  action  had  commenced  the 
French  tricolor  came  fluttering  down.  We  had 
struck  our  first  blow  against  the  power  of  France. 

The  captured  vessel  was  sent  into  port  under  a 
prize  crew,  was  refitted,  added  to  the  American 
Navy  as  the  Retaliation — fitting  name! — went  to 
sea  under  command  of  William  Bainbridge  (the 
same  who  a  few  years  later  was  to  lose  the  war 
ship  Philadelphia  to  the  Barbary  pirates  in  the 
harbor  of  Tripoli),  and  shortly  afterward  was  re 
captured  by  the  French  frigate  FInsurgtnle,  being 
the  only  vessel  of  our  little  navy  taken  by  the 
French. 

By  the  beginning  of  1799  the  West  Indian  waters 
were  as  effectually  patrolled  by  American  war 
ships  as  a  great  city  is  patrolled  by  policemen. 
The  newly  built  American  frigates  were  objects 
of  great  amusement  and  derision  to  the  French 
and  British  officers  stationed  in  the  West  Indian 

29 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

colonies,  for  they  were  far  too  heavily  armed,  ac 
cording  to  European  ideas,  carrying  almost  double 
the  number  of  guns  usual  to  vessels  of  their  class. 
It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  fact,  however,  that 
sixty-odd  years  later  European  officers  were 
equally  derisive  and  sceptical  of  another  Ameri 
can  innovation  in  war-ships  which  was  destined 
to  revolutionize  naval  warfare — the  monitor.  But 
before  long  the  sceptics  were  compelled  to  revise 
their  opinions  of  the  fighting  qualities  of  our  in 
fant  navy.  Our  fleet  was  at  this  time  divided 
into  two  squadrons,  both  of  which  made  their 
headquarters  at  St.  Christopher,  or,  as  it  was 
more  commonly  called,  St.  Kitts,  on  the  island 
of  Antigua;  one,  under  Commodore  Barry,  run 
ning  as  far  south  as  the  Guianas,  while  the  other, 
under  Commodore  Truxtun,  cruised  northward 
to  Santo  Domingo,  thus  effectually  cutting  off 
from  commercial  intercourse  with  the  mother 
country  the  rich  French  colonies  in  the  Caribbean. 
Truxtun  was  a  most  picturesque  and  romantic 
figure.  Short  and  stout,  red-faced,  gray-eyed, 
loud-voiced,  gallant  with  women  and  short-tem 
pered  with  men,  he  was  as  typical  a  sea  fighter 
as  ever  trod  a  quarter-deck  with  a  brass  telescope 
tucked  under  his  arm.  From  the  time  when, 
as  a  boy  of  twelve,  he  ran  away  to  sea,  until, 

30 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

a  national  hero,  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  Christ 
Church  graveyard  in  Philadelphia,  his  life  was  as 
full  of  hair-breadth  escapes  and  hair-raising  ad 
ventures  as  that  of  one  of  Mr.  George  A.  Henty's 
heroes.  A  sailor  before  the  mast  when  scarcely 
in  his  teens,  he  was  impressed  into  the  British 
Navy,  where  his  ability  attracted  such  attention 
that  he  was  offered  a  midshipman's  warrant, 
which  he  refused.  When  only  twenty  years  of 
age  he  commanded  his  own  ship,  in  which  he  suc 
ceeded,  though  at  great  personal  hazard,  in  smug 
gling  large  quantities  of  much-needed  powder  into 
the  rebellious  colonies.  Eventually  his  ship  was 
captured  and  he  was  made  a  prisoner.  Escaping 
from  the  British  prison  in  the  West  Indies  where 
he  was  confined,  he  made  his  way  to  the  United 
States,  obtained  letters  of  marque  from  the  first 
Continental  Congress,  and  was  the  first  to  get  to 
sea  of  that  long  line  of  privateersmen  who,  first 
in  the  Revolution,  and  afterward  in  the  War  of 
1812,  practically  drove  British  commerce  from 
the  Atlantic.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolution 
Truxtun  returned  to  the  merchant  service,  in 
which  he  rose  to  wealth  and  position.  When  the 
American  Navy  was  organized  under  the  stimulus 
of  French  aggression,  he  was  offered  and  accepted 
the  command  of  the  thirty-eight-gun  frigate  Con- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

stellation,  a  new  and  very  beautiful  vessel,  splen 
didly  officered  and  manned,  and  with  heels  as 
fast  as  her  gun-fire  was  heavy. 

While  cruising  off  Antigua,  on  February  9,  1799, 
the  Constellation  s  lookout  reported  a  French 
war-ship,  which,  upon  being  overhauled,  proved 
to  be  r  Insurgent* ,  forty  guns,  which  had  the  repu 
tation  of  being  one  of  the  fastest  ships  in  the 
world,  and  was  commanded  by  Captain  Bar- 
reault,  an  officer  celebrated  in  the  French  Navy  as 
a  desperate  fighter  and  a  resourceful  sailor.  As 
the  Constellation,  with  her  crew  at  quarters  and 
her  decks  cleared  for  action,  came  booming  down 
upon  him,  Captain  Barreault  broke  out  the 
French  tricolor  at  his  masthead  and  fired  a  gun 
to  windward,  which  signified,  in  the  language  of 
the  seas,  that  he  was  ready  for  a  yard-arm  to 
yard-arm  combat.  Truxtun's  reply  was  to  range 
alongside  his  adversary,  a  flag  of  stripes  and  stars 
at  every  masthead,  and  pour  in  a  broadside 
which  raked  I'lnsurgente's  decks  from  stem  to 
stern.  The  first  great  naval  action  in  which  the 
American  Navy  ever  bore  a  part  had  begun. 

Waiting  until  the  Constellation  was  well  abreast 
of  her,  at  a  distance  of  perhaps  thirty  feet  (modern 
war-ships  seldom  fight  at  a  range  of  less  than 
three  miles),  Vlnsurgente  replied,  firing  high  in  an 

32 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

attempt  to  disable  the  American  by  bringing  down 
her  rigging.  Midshipman  David  Porter,  a  young 
ster  barely  in  his  teens,  was  stationed  in  the  fore- 
top.  Seeing  that  the  top-mast,  which  had  been 
seriously  damaged  by  the  French  fire,  was  totter 
ing  and  about  to  fall,  but  being  unable  to  make 
himself  heard  on  deck  above  the  din  of  battle, 
he  himself  assumed  the  responsibility  of  lowering 
the  foretopsail  yard,  thus  relieving  the  strain  on 
the  mast  and  preventing  a  mishap  which  would 
probably  have  changed  the  result  of  the  battle. 
That  midshipman  rose,  in  after  years,  to  be  an 
admiral  and  the  commander-in-chief  of  the 
American  Navy. 

Barreault,  who  had  a  much  larger  crew  than  his 
adversary,  soon  saw  that  his  vessel  was  in  danger 
of  being  pounded  to  pieces  by  the  American  gun 
ners  who  were  making  every  shot  tell,  and  that  his 
only  hope  of  victory  lay  in  getting  alongside  and 
boarding,  depending  upon  his  superior  numbers  to 
take  the  American  vessel  with  the  cutlass.  With 
this  in  view,  he  ordered  the  boarding  parties  to 
their  stations,  sent  men  into  the  rigging  with  grap 
pling-irons  with  which  to  hold  the  ships  together 
when  they  touched,  directed  the  guns  to  be  loaded 
with  small  shot  that  they  might  cause  greater  exe 
cution  at  close  quarters,  and  then,  putting  his  helm 

33 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

hard  down,  attempted  to  run  alongside  the  Con 
stellation.  But  Truxtun  had  anticipated  this  very 
manoeuvre,  and  was  prepared  for  it.  Seizing  his  op 
portunity — and  in  sea-battles  opportunities  do  not 
last  long  or  come  often — he  whirled  his  ship  about 
as  a  polo  player  whirls  his  pony,  and  ran  squarely 
across  the  enemy's  bows,  pouring  in  a  rain  of  lead 
as  he  passed,  which  all  but  annihilated  the  board 
ing  parties  drawn  up  on  the  deck  of  FInsurgente. 

Foiled  in  his  attempt  to  get  to  hand-grips  with 
his  enemy,  the  Frenchman  sheered  off  and  the 
duel  at  short  range  continued,  the  Constellation, 
magnificently  handled,  sailing  first  along  I'lnsur- 
gentes  port  side,  firing  as  she  went,  and  then, 
crossing  her  bows,  repeating  the  manoeuvre  on 
her  starboard  quarter.  Nothing  is  more  typical 
of  the  iron  discipline  enforced  by  the  American 
naval  commanders  in  those  early  days  than  an 
incident  that  occurred  when  this  duel  between  the 
two  frigates  was  at  its  height.  As  a  storm  of 
shot  from  the  Frenchman's  batteries  came  crash 
ing  and  smashing  into  the  Constellation,  a  gunner, 
seeing  his  mate  decapitated  by  a  solid  shot, 
became  so  demoralized  that  he  retreated  from 
his  gun,  whereupon  an  officer  drew  his  pistol  and 
shot  the  man  dead. 

Time  after  time  Truxtun  repeated  his  evolution 
34 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

of  literally  sailing  around  I* Insurgents,  until  every 
gun  in  her  main  batteries  had  been  dismounted, 
her  crew  being  left  only  the  small  guns  with  which 
to  continue  the  action.  It  speaks  volumes  for 
Barreault's  bravery  that,  with  half  his  crew  dead 
or  wounded,  and  with  a  terribly  battered  and 
almost  defenceless  ship,  he  did  continue  the  action, 
his  weary,  blood-stained,  powder-blackened  men 
loading  and  firing  their  few  remaining  guns  daunt- 
lessly.  Seeing  the  weakened  condition  of  his  en 
emy,  Truxtun  now  prepared  to  end  the  battle. 
Before  the  French  had  time  to  grasp  the  full  sig 
nificance  of  his  manoeuvre,  he  had  put  his  helm 
hard  down,  and  the  Constellation,  suddenly  loom 
ing  out  of  the  battle  smoke,  bore  down  upon  Fln- 
surgente  with  the  evident  intention  of  crossing  her 
stern  and  raking  her  with  a  broadside  to  which 
she  would  be  unable  to  reply.  Though  no  braver 
man  than  Barreault  ever  fought  a  ship,  he  in 
stantly  appreciated  that  this  would  mean  an  un 
necessary  slaughter  of  his  men;  so,  with  the  tears 
streaming  down  his  cheeks,  he  ordered  his  colors 
to  be  struck,  and  in  token  of  surrender  the  flag  of 
France  slipped  slowly  and  mournfully  down.  The 
young  republic  of  the  West  had  avenged  the  in 
sult  of  Talleyrand. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  notwithstanding 

35 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

the  desperate  fighting  which  characterized  this 
battle,  the  Constellation  had  only  two  of  her  crew 
killed  and  three  wounded,  while  the  French  loss 
was  nearly  twenty  times  that  number.  Lieu 
tenant  Rodgers  and  Midshipman  Porter  were  im 
mediately  sent  aboard  the  captured  vessel  with  a 
prize  crew  of  only  eleven  men.  After  the  dead 
had  been  buried  at  sea,  the  wounded  cared  for 
by  the  American  surgeons,  and  about  half  of  the 
prisoners  transferred  to  the  Constellation,  Rodgers 
set  such  sails  on  I'lnsurgente  as  the  wrecked  rig 
ging  would  permit,  and  laid  his  course  for  St. 
Christopher,  it  being  understood  that  Truxtun 
would  keep  within  hail  in  case  his  assistance  was 
needed.  During  the  night  a  heavy  gale  set  in, 
however,  and  when  day  broke  upon  the  heaving 
ocean  the  Constellation  was  nowhere  to  be  seen. 
It  was  a  ticklish  situation  in  which  the  thirteen 
Americans  found  themselves,  for  they  had  their 
work  cut  out  for  them  to  navigate  a  leaking,  shat 
tered,  and  dismasted  ship,  while  below  decks, 
awaiting  the  first  opportunity  which  offered  to 
rise  and  overpower  their  captors,  were  nearly 
two  hundred  desperate  and  determined  prisoners. 
There  were  neither  shackles  nor  handcuffs  on 
board,  and  the  hatchcovers  had  been  destroyed 
in  the  action,  so  that  the  prisoners  were  perfectly 

36 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

aware  that,  could  they  once  force  their  way  on 
deck  by  a  sudden  rush,  the  ship  would  again  be 
theirs.  But  they  reckoned  without  Rodgers,  for 
the  first  men  who  put  their  heads  above  the  hatch 
way  found  themselves  looking  into  the  muzzles  of 
a  pair  of  pistols  held  by  the  American  lieutenant, 
whose  fingers  were  twitching  on  the  triggers. 
During  the  three  days  and  two  nights  which  the 
voyage  to  St.  Christopher  lasted,  a  guard  of  Ameri 
can  bluejackets  stood  constantly  around  the  open 
hatchway,  a  pile  of  loaded  small  arms  close  at 
hand,  and  a  cannon  loaded  with  grape-shot  trained 
menacingly  into  the  prisoner-filled  hold.  On  the 
evening  of  the  third  day,  after  Truxtun  had  given 
her  up  for  lost,  I' Insurgents  limped  into  port  with 
the  flag  of  the  United  States  flaunting  victoriously 
above  that  of  France. 

The  1st  of  February  of  the  following  year  found 
the  Constellation,  still  under  the  command  of 
Commodore  Truxtun,  cruising  off  Guadaloupe  in 
the  hope  of  picking  up  some  of  the  French  priva 
teers  which  were  using  that  colony  as  a  base  from 
which  to  prey  on  our  West  Indian  commerce. 
While  loitering  off  the  port  of  Basse  Terre,  and 
praying  that  something  would  turn  up  to  pay  him 
for  his  patience,  Truxtun  sighted  a  vessel  coming 
up  from  the  southeast,  which  from  her  size  and 

37 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

build  was  evidently  a  French  frigate  of  the  first 
class.  As  she  approached,  the  keen-eyed  Ameri 
can  naval  officers,  scanning  her  through  their 
glasses,  recognized  her  as  the  fifty-two-gun  frigate 
La  Vengeance,  one  of  the  most  formidable  vessels 
in  the  French  Navy.  It  was  evident  from  the 
first,  however,  that  she  would  much  rather  run 
than  fight,  this  anxiety  to  avoid  an  encounter 
being  due  to  the  fact  that  she  had  on  board  a 
large  number  of  officials,  high  in  the  colonial 
service,  whom  she  was  bringing  out  to  the  colonies 
from  the  mother  country.  No  sooner  did  she  per 
ceive  the  character  of  the  Constellation,  therefore, 
than  she  piled  on  every  yard  of  canvas  and  headed 
for  Basse  Terre  and  the  protecting  guns  of  its 
forts.  Never  had  the  Constellation  a  better  op 
portunity  to  display  her  remarkable  sailing  quali 
ties,  and  never  did  she  display  them  to  better 
advantage.  It  was  well  after  nightfall,  however, 
before  she  was  able  to  overhaul  the  flying  French 
man,  so  that  it  was  by  the  light  of  a  full  moon, 
which  illumined  the  scene  almost  as  well  as  though 
it  were  day,  that  the  preparations  were  completed 
for  the  combat.  The  sea,  which  was  glasslike  in 
its  smoothness,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  Carib 
bean  waters,  seemed  to  be  covered  with  a  veil  of 
shimmering  silver,  while  the  battle-lanterns  which 

38 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

had  been  lighted  on  both  vessels  swung  like  giant 
fireflies  across  the  purple  sky. 

Seeing  that  escape  was  hopeless,  the  French 
commander  hove  to  and  prepared  for  a  desperate 
resistance.  Now,  Truxtun  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  this  was  to  be  no  long-range  duel,  in  which 
the  Frenchman's  heavier  metal  could  not  fail  to 
give  him  an  advantage,  but  a  fight  at  close  quar 
ters,  in  which  the  smashing  broadsides  which  the 
Constellation  was  specially  designed  to  deliver 
could  not  fail  to  tell.  Just  before  the  beginning 
of  the  battle  the  stout  commodore,  red-faced, 
white-wigged,  cock-hatted,  clad  in  the  blue  tail 
coat  and  buff  breeches  of  the  American  Navy, 
descended  to  the  gun-deck  and  walked  slowly 
through  the  batteries,  acknowledging  the  cheers 
of  the  gunners,  but  emphatically  warning  them 
against  firing  a  shot  until  he  gave  the  word.  No 
one  knew  better  than  Truxtun  the  demoralizing 
effect  of  a  smashing  broadside  suddenly  delivered 
at  close  quarters,  and  it  was  this  demoralization 
which  he  intended  to  create  aboard  the  enemy. 
"Load  with  solid  shot,"  he  ordered,  and  added, 
speaking  to  his  officers  so  that  the  men  could 
hear:  "If  a  man  fires  a  gun  before  I  give  the 
order,  shoot  him  on  the  spot."  Then  with  board 
ing-nettings  triced  up,  decks  sanded,  magazines 

39 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

opened,  and  the  tops  filled  with  marines  whose 
duty  it  was  to  pick  off  the  French  gunners,  the 
Constellation,  stripped  to  her  fighting  canvas, 
swept  grandly  into  action.  As  she  came  within 
range  the  French  commander  opened  with  his 
stern-chasers,  and  in  an  instant  the  ordered  decks 
of  the  American  were  turned  into  a  shambles. 
The  wounded  were  carried  groaning  to  the  cock 
pit,  where  the  white-aproned  surgeons,  their  arms 
bared  to  the  elbow,  awaited  their  grim  work,  while 
the  dead  were  hastily  ranged  along  the  unengaged 
side — rows  of  stark  and  staring  figures  beneath 
the  placid  moon.  Again  and  again  the  guns  of 
La  Vengeance  belched  smoke  and  flame,  and  red 
der  and  redder  grew  the  sand  with  which  the 
Constellation  s  decks  were  spread,  but  she  still 
kept  coming  on.  Not  until  she  was  squarely 
abreast  of  the  Frenchman  did  Truxtun,  leaping 
into  the  shrouds,  bellow  through  his  speaking- 
trumpet:  "Now,  boys,  give  'em  hell!"  The 
American  gunners  answered  with  a  broadside 
which  made  La  Vengeance  reel.  The  effect  was 
terrible.  On  the  decks  of  the  Frenchman  the 
dead  and  dying  lay  in  quivering,  bleeding  heaps. 
But  not  for  an  instant  did  the  French  sailors  flinch 
from  their  guns.  Broadside  answered  broadside, 
cheer  answered  cheer,  while  the  men,  French  and 

40 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

American  alike,  toiled  and  sweated  at  their  work 
of  carnage.  So  rapidly  were  the  American  guns 
fired  that  the  men  actually  had  to  crawl  out  of  the 
ports,  in  the  face  of  a  withering  fire,  for  buckets 
of  water  with  which  to  cool  them  off. 

The  different  tactics  adopted  by  the  two  com 
manders  soon  began  to  show  results,  for,  whereas 
Truxtun  had  given  orders  that  his  men  were  to 
disregard  the  upper  works  and  to  concentrate 
their  fire  on  the  main-deck  batteries  and  the  hull, 
the  French  commander  had  from  the  first  directed 
his  fire  upon  the  American's  rigging  in  the  hope 
of  crippling  her.  Shortly  after  midnight  the 
French  fire,  which  had  grown  weaker  and  weaker 
under  the  terrible  punishment  of  the  Constella 
tion  s  successive  broadsides,  ceased  altogether, 
and  an  officer  was  seen  waving  a  white  flag  in 
token  of  surrender.  Twice  before,  in  fact,  La 
Vengeance  had  struck  her  colors,  but  owing  to  the 
smoke  and  darkness  the  Americans  had  not  per 
ceived  it.  And  there  was  good  reason  for  her 
surrender,  for  she  had  lost  one  hundred  and 
sixty  men  out  of  her  crew  of  three  hundred  and 
thirty,  while  the  Constellation  had  but  thirty- 
nine  casualties  out  of  a  crew  of  three  hundred  and 
ten.  Though  the  French  fire  had  done  small  dam 
age  to  the  Constellation  s  hull,  and  had  killed  a 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

comparatively  small  number  of  her  crew,  it  had 
worked  terrible  havoc  in  her  rigging,  it  being  dis 
covered,  just  as  she  was  preparing  to  run  along 
side  her  capture  and  take  possession,  that  every 
shroud  and  stay  supporting  her  mainmast  had 
been  shot  away,  and  that  the  mast  was  tottering 
and  about  to  fall.  The  men  in  the  top  were  un 
der  the  command  of  a  little  midshipman  named 
James  Jarvis,  who  was  only  thirteen  years  old. 
He  had  been  warned  by  one  of  his  men  that  the 
mast  was  likely  to  fall  at  any  moment,  and 
had  been  implored  to  leave  the  top  while  there 
was  still  time,  which  he  would  have  been  entirely 
justified  in  doing,  particularly  as  the  battle  was 
over.  But  that  thirteen-year-old  midshipman 
had  in  him  the  stuff  of  which  heroes  are  made, 
and  resolutely  refused  to  leave  his  post  without 
orders.  The  orders  never  came,  for  before  the 
crew  had  time  to  secure  it  the  great  mast  crashed 
over  the  side,  carrying  with  it  to  instant  death 
little  Jarvis  and  all  of  his  men  save  one.  Though 
his  name  and  deed  have  long  since  been  forgotten 
by  the  nation  for  which  he  died,  he  was  no  whit 
less  a  hero  than  that  other  boy-sailor,  Casabianca, 
whose  self-sacrifice  at  the  battle  of  the  Nile  has 
been  made  familiar  by  song  and  story. 

The  falling  of  the  Constellation's  mast  reversed 
42 


When  We  Fought  Napoleon 

conditions  in  an  instant,  for  the  surrendered 
frigate,  taking  prompt  advantage  of  the  victor's 
temporary  helplessness,  crowded  on  all  sail  and 
slowly  disappeared  into  the  night.  By  the  time 
the  wreck  had  been  chopped  away  any  pursuit  of 
her  was  hopeless.  A  few  days  later  she  put  into 
the  Dutch  port  of  Cura£ao  in  a  sinking  condition. 

Thus  continued  until  February,  1801,  an  un 
broken  series  of  American  successes,  French  war 
ships,  French  privateers,  and  French  merchant 
men  alike  being  sunk,  captured,  or  driven  from 
the  seas.  France's  trade  with  her  West  Indian 
colonies  was  paralyzed,  and  the  prestige  of  her 
navy  was  enormously  diminished.  Napoleon,  as 
First  Consul,  had  abolished  the  Directory,  and 
was  now  the  virtual  ruler  of  France,  having  entire 
command  of  all  administrative  affairs,  both  civil 
and  military.  Forced  to  admit  that  from  first  to 
last  his  ships  had  been  out-sailed,  out-fought,  and 
out-manoeuvred  by  the  despised  Americans,  and 
that  a  continuance  of  the  war  could  only  result 
in  further  disaster  and  loss  of  prestige,  he  began 
negotiations  which  led,  about  the  time  that  the 
nineteenth  century  passed  its  first  birthday,  to  a 
suspension  of  hostilities. 

During  the  two  and  a  half  years  of  this  unofficial 
war  with  the  most  powerful  military  nation  in  the 

43 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

world  our  infant  navy  had  captured  eighty-four 
armed  French  vessels,  mounting  over  five  hun 
dred  guns — a  success  all  the  more  remarkable 
when  it  is  remembered  that  our  entire  naval  estab 
lishment  at  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  comprised 
but  twenty-two  vessels,  with  four  hundred  and 
fifty-six  guns.  In  other  words,  we  had  captured 
almost  four  times  as  many  ships  as  we  possessed. 
Not  only  had  we  practically  destroyed  French 
commerce  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  but  our 
own  commerce  had  risen,  under  the  protection  of 
our  guns,  from  fifty-seven  million  dollars  in  1797 
to  more  than  seventy-eight  million  dollars  in  1799. 
Most  important  of  all,  however,  we  had  shown  to 
France  and  to  Europe  that,  when  occasion  de 
manded,  we  both  would  and  could,  in  the  words 
of  our  national  song,  defend  our  rights  and  defend 
our  shore. 


44 


WHEN  WE  CAPTURED  AN  AFRICAN 
KINGDOM 


WHEN  WE  CAPTURED  AN  AFRICAN 
KINGDOM 

DID  you  ever,  by  any  chance,  leave  the 
Boston  State  House  by  the  back  door? 
If  so,  you  found  yourself  in  a  quiet  and  rather 
shabby  thoroughfare,  cobble-paved  and  lined  on 
the  farther  side  by  old-fashioned  red-brick  houses, 
with  white,  brass-knockered  doors,  and  iron  bal 
conies,  and  green  blinds.  That  is  Derne  Street. 
Though  a  man  standing  on  Boston  Common 
could  break  one  of  its  violet-glass  windows  with 
a  well  thrown  ball,  it  is,  as  it  were,  a  placid  back 
water  of  the  busy  streams  of  commerce  which 
flow  so  noisily  a  few  rods  away.  I  wonder  how 
many  of  the  smug  frock-coated  politicians  who 
hurry  through  it  as  a  short  cut  daily  have  any 
idea  how  it  got  its  name;  I  wonder  if  any  of  the 
people  who  live  upon  it  know.  Though  the  ex 
ploit  which  this  Boston  byway  was  named  to 
commemorate  has  been  overlooked  by  nearly  all 
our  historians,  perhaps  because  its  scene  was  laid 
in  a  remote  and  barbarous  country,  yet  it  was  a 

47 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

feat  which,  for  picturesqueness,  daring,  and  in 
domitable  courage,  is  deserving  of  a  more  generous 
share  of  the  calcium  light  of  public  appreciation. 
Though  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  history  only 
too  often  makes  dull  reading,  this  chronicle,  I 
promise  you,  is  as  bristling  with  romance  and 
adventure  as  a  hedgehog  is  with  quills. 

You  must  understand,  in  the  first  place,  that 
the  declining  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  found 
a  perfectly  astounding  state  of  affairs  prevailing 
in  the  Mediterranean,  where  the  four  Barbary 
states — Morocco,  Algiers,  Tunis,  and  Tripoli — 
which  stretched  along  its  African  shore,  collected 
tribute  from  every  nation  whose  vessels  sailed  that 
sea  as  methodically  as  a  street-car  conductor  col 
lects  fares.  Asserting  that  they  were  no  common, 
vulgar  buccaneers  who  plundered  vessels  indis 
criminately,  the  Barbary  corsairs,  claiming  for 
themselves  the  virtual  ownership  of  the  Mediter 
ranean,  turned  it  into  a  sort  of  maritime  toll-road, 
and  professed  themselves  at  war  with  all  who  re 
fused  to  pay  roundly  for  using  it.  Nor  was  their 
boast  that  they  were  the  masters  of  the  Middle 
Sea  a  vain  one,  scores  of  captured  merchantmen 
and  thousands  of  European  slaves  laboring  under 
the  African  sun  proving  indubitably  that  they 
were  amply  capable  of  enforcing  their  demands. 

48 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

As  far  as  the  question  of  economy  was  concerned, 
it  was  about  as  cheap  for  a  nation  to  be  at  war 
with  these  bandits  of  the  sea  as  at  peace,  for  so 
heavy  was  the  tribute  they  demanded  that  their 
friendship  came  almost  as  high  as  their  enmity. 
It  cost  Spain,  at  that  time  a  rich  and  powerful 
empire,  upward  of  three  million  dollars  to  obtain 
peace  with  the  Dey  of  Algiers  in  1786.  Though 
England  boasted  herself  mistress  of  the  seas,  and 
in  token  thereof  English  admirals  carried  brooms 
at  their  mastheads,  she  nevertheless  spent  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars  annually  in  propitiating 
these  African  despots.  Previous  to  the  Revolu 
tion  there  were  close  on  a  hundred  American 
vessels,  manned  by  more  than  twelve  hundred 
seamen,  in  the  Mediterranean,  but  with  the  with 
drawal  of  British  protection  this  commerce  was 
entirely  abandoned.  The  ink  was  scarcely  dry 
on  the  treaty  of  peace,  however,  before  we  had 
despatched  diplomatic  agents  to  the  Barbary 
coast  to  purchase  the  friendship  of  its  rulers,  and 
had  taken  our  place  in  the  line  of  regular  contrib 
utors.  We  were  in  good  company,  too,  for  Eng 
land,  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  Den 
mark,  and  the  Italian  states  had  been  paying 
tribute  so  long  that  they  had  acquired  the  habit. 
Think  of  it,  my  friends!  Every  great  seafaring 

49 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

nation  in  the  world  meekly  paying  tribute  to  a 
few  thousand  Arab  cutthroats  for  the  privilege 
of  using  one  of  the  seven  seas,  and  humbly  apolo 
gizing  if  the  payment  happened  to  become  over 
due! 

Our  friendly  relations  with  the  Dey  of  Algiers 
were  of  short  duration,  however,  and  by  1793  his 
swift-sailing,  heavily  armed  cruisers  had  captured 
thirteen  American  vessels,  and  sixscore  American 
slaves  were  at  work  on  the  fortifications  of  his 
capital.  In  his  prison-yard,  indeed,  one  could 
hear  every  American  inflection,  from  the  nasal 
twang  of  Maine  to  the  drawl  of  Carolina.  After 
two  years  of  procrastination,  Congress,  spurred  to 
action  by  public  indignation,  purchased  the  liberty 
of  the  captives  and  peace  with  Algiers  for  eight 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  though  the  Dey  re 
marked  gloomily,  as  he  scrawled  his  Arabic  flour 
ish  at  the  foot  of  the  treaty:  "If  I  keep  on  making 
peace  at  this  rate,  there  will  soon  be  no  one  left 
to  fight.  Then  how  shall  I  occupy  my  corsairs? 
What  shall  I  do  with  my  fighting  men?  If  they 
have  no  one  else  to  rob  and  slaughter,  they  will 
rob  and  slaughter  me!" 

The  Bashaw  of  Tripoli  at  this  time  was  a  pecul 
iarly  insolent  and  tyrannical  Arab  named  Yussuf 
Karamanli,  who  had  gained  the  throne  by  the 

5° 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

effective  method  of  winning  over  the  body-guard, 
quietly  surrounding  the  palace  one  night,  and  de 
posing  his  elder  brother,  Ahmet,  whom  he  promptly 
exiled.  Despite  the  annual  tribute  of  twenty-two 
thousand  dollars  which  we  were  paying  to  the 
Bashaw,  not  to  mention  the  seventeen  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  presents  which  we  presented  bi 
ennially  to  the  officers  and  officials  of  his  court,  he 
complained  most  bitterly  to  the  American  consul 
at  Tripoli  that  he  was  not  getting  as  much  as  his 
neighboring  rulers,  and  that  unless  the  matter  was 
remedied  immediately,  he  would  have  to  get  some 
American  slaves  to  teach  him  English.  Now, 
Yussuf  was  a  bad  man  to  have  for  an  enemy,  for 
his  cruisers  were  numerous  and  loaded  to  the  gun 
wales  with  pirates  who  would  rather  fight  than 
eat,  and  he  had,  in  addition,  the  reputation  of 
being  most  inconsiderate  to  those  sailors  who  fell 
into  his  hands,  sometimes  going  so  far  as  to  wall 
a  few  of  them  up  in  the  fortifications  which  he 
was  constantly  building.  To  put  it  bluntly,  he 
was  not  popular  outside  of  his  own  circle.  As 
Mr.  Cathcart,  the  American  consul,  did  not  take 
his  demands  for  a  larger  tribute  very  seriously, 
the  Bashaw  wrote  to  President  Jefferson  direct, 
mincing  no  words  in  saying  that  the  American 
government  had  better  grant  his  request,  and  be 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

quick  about  it,  or  American  seamen  would  find  the 
Mediterranean  exceedingly  unhealthy  for  them. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem  in  this  day  and  age, 
the  authorities  at  Washington  ordered  a  vessel  to 
be  loaded  with  the  arms,  ammunition,  and  naval 
stores  demanded  by  the  Bashaw,  their  total  value 
being  thirty-four  thousand  dollars,  and  hurriedly 
despatched  it  to  Tripoli,  with  profuse  apologies 
for  the  delay.  A  few  months  later  the  Bashaw, 
who  evidently  knew  a  good  thing  when  he  saw  it, 
suggested  that  a  token  of  our  esteem  for  him  in 
the  form  of  jewels  would  be  highly  acceptable, 
whereupon  the  American  minister  in  London  was 
instructed  to  purchase  jewelry  to  the  value  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  and  have  it  hurried  to  Tripoli 
by  special  messenger.  Emboldened  by  his  un 
dreamed-of  success  in  shaking  the  republican  tree, 
the  Bashaw  reached  the  very  height  of  audacity 
by  again  sending  a  peremptory  note  to  President 
Jefferson,  demanding  that  the  United  States  im 
mediately  present  him  with  a  thirty-six-gun  war 
ship!  As  no  attention  was  paid  to  this  modest 
request  (and  in  view  of  the  other  outrageous  con 
cessions  made  by  our  government,  it  is  somewhat 
surprising  that  this  demand  was  not  granted  also), 
the  Bashaw  ordered  the  flagstaff  of  the  American 
consulate  to  be  chopped  down  as  a  sign  of  war, 

52 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

and  turned  his  corsairs  loose  on  American  com 
merce  in  the  Mediterranean.  The  war  opened 
most  disastrously  for  the  United  States,  for  a  few 
months  later  the  frigate  Philadelphia  ran  aground 
in  the  harbor  of  Tripoli,  the  Tripolitans  capturing 
Captain  Bainbridge  and  his  entire  crew.  No 
wonder  the  Bashaw  went  to  the  mosque  that  day 
to  give  thanks  to  Allah,  for  had  he  not  received 
an  even  larger  war-ship  than  he  had  demanded, 
and  did  he  not  have  two  hundred  American  slaves 
to  instruct  him  in  the  English  tongue?  "God  is 
great!"  exclaimed  the  Bashaw  devoutly,  as  he 
knelt  on  his  silken  prayer-rug,  and  "God  is 
great!"  echoed  the  rows  of  corsairs  who  knelt 
behind  him. 

It  was  shortly  after  this  American  misfortune 
that  William  Eaton,  soldier,  diplomat,  and  Indian- 
fighter,  swaggered  upon  the  scene,  and  things  be 
gan  to  happen  with  a  rapidity  that  made  the 
Bashaw's  turbaned  head  whirl.  By  birth  and  up 
bringing  Eaton  was  a  Connecticut  Yankee,  and 
he  possessed  all  the  shrewdness,  hardihood,  and 
perseverance  so  characteristic  of  that  race.  The 
son  of  a  schoolmaster  farmer,  before  he  was  six 
teen  he  had  run  away  from  home  to  join  the  Con 
tinental  Army,  which  he  left  at  the  close  of  the 
Revolution  with  the  chevrons  of  a  sergeant  on  his 

S3 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

coat-sleeve.  Far-sighted  enough  to  see  the  value 
of  a  college  education,  he  went  from  the  camp 
straight  to  the  college  classroom.  Graduating 
from  Dartmouth  in  1790,  he  re-entered  the  army 
as  a  captain,  served  against  the  Indians  in  Georgia 
and  Ohio,  and  in  1798  received  an  appointment 
as  American  consul  at  Tunis.  Resolute,  energetic, 
and  daring,  impatient  with  any  one  who  did  not 
agree  with  his  views,  no  better  man  could  have 
been  selected  for  the  place.  Thoroughly  under 
standing  the  Arab  character,  from  the  very  outset 
he  took  a  high  hand  in  his  dealings  with  the  Tu 
nisian  ruler.  He  alternately  quarrelled  with  and 
patronized  the  Bey,  bullyragged  his  ministers,  and 
actually  horsewhipped  an  insolent  official  of  the 
court  in  the  palace  courtyard,  for  five  years 
keeping  up  an  uninterrupted  series  of  altercations, 
provocations,  and  procrastinations  over  the  pay 
ment  of  tribute-money.  He  acted  with  such  en 
ergy  and  boldness,  however,  that  he  secured  to 
the  commerce  of  his  country  complete  immunity 
from  the  attacks  of  Tunisian  cruisers,  and  made 
the  name  American  respected  on  that  part  of  the 
Barbary  coast  at  least.  In  1801,  as  I  have  al 
ready  remarked,  the  American  flagstaff  in  the 
adjoining  kingdom  of  Tripoli  came  crashing  down 
at  the  Bashaw's  order,  and  war  promptly  began 

54 


The  frigate  Philadelphia  ran  aground  in  the  harbor  of  Tripoli, 

the  Tripolitans  capturing  Captain  Bainbridge 

and  his  entire  crew. 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

between  that  country  and  the  United  States.  Two 
years  later  the  Bey  of  Tunis,  harried  beyond 
endurance  by  the  half-insolent,  half-patronizing 
fashion  in  which  Eaton  treated  him,  ordered  that 
gentleman  to  leave  the  country. 

Returning  to  the  United  States,  Eaton  went 
immediately  to  Washington  and  laid  before  Presi 
dent  Jefferson  and  his  Cabinet  a  scheme  for  bring 
ing  the  war  with  Tripoli  to  a  successful  conclusion, 
and  exchanging  our  humiliating  position  as  a  con 
tributor  to  a  gang  of  pirates  for  one  more  consistent 
with  American  ideals.  The  plan  which  he  pro 
posed  was,  briefly,  that  the  United  States  should 
assist  in  restoring  to  the  Tripolitan  throne  the 
exiled  Bashaw,  Ahmet  Karamanli,  on  the  under 
standing  that,  upon  his  restoration,  the  exaction 
of  tribute  from  the  American  government  and 
the  depredations  on  American  commerce  should 
cease.  Eaton  was  outspoken  in  urging  the  de 
sirability  of  carrying  out  this  plan,  arguing  that 
the  dethronement  of  one  of  the  Barbary  despots 
would  impress  the  people  of  all  that  region  as 
nothing  else  could  do.  I  can  see  him  standing 
there  beside  the  long  table  in  the  Cabinet  room  of 
the  White  House,  his  lean  Yankee  face  aglow  with 
enthusiasm,  his  every  motion  bespeaking  con 
fidence  in  himself  and  his  plan,  while  Jefferson  and 

55 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

his  sedate,  conservative  advisers  lean  far  back  in 
their  chairs  and  regard  this  visionary  half  curi 
ously,  half  amusedly,  as  he  outlines  his  schemes 
for  overturning  thrones  and  reapportioning  king 
doms.  From  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  he 
received  the  sort  of  treatment  which  timid  gov 
ernments  are  apt  to  bestow  on  men  of  spirit  and 
action.  He  was  given  to  understand  that  he  was 
at  liberty  to  carry  out  his  plans,  but  that,  if  he 
was  successful,  the  government  would  take  all  the 
credit,  and  that,  if  he  failed,  he  would  have  to 
take  all  the  blame.  The  only  way  to  explain  the 
astounding  apathy  of  the  American  government 
to  events  in  the  Mediterranean  is  that  a  bitter 
political  struggle  was  then  in  progress  in  the  United 
States,  and  that  the  very  remoteness  of  the  theatre 
of  war  probably  lessened  its  importance  in  the 
eyes  of  the  administration.  At  any  rate,  Presi 
dent  Jefferson  signed  the  appointment  of  Eaton 
as  American  naval  agent  in  the  Mediterranean, 
and,  happy  as  a  schoolboy  at  the  beginning  of  the 
long  vacation,  at  the  wide  latitude  of  action  con 
ferred  upon  him  by  this  purposely  vague  commis 
sion,  he  sailed  a  few  days  later  with  the  American 
fleet  for  Egypt.  His  great  adventure  had  begun. 
Aware  that  the  dethroned  Bashaw  had  fled  to 
Cairo,  Eaton  landed  at  Alexandria,  and,  hastening 

56 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

to  the  Egyptian  capital  by  camel,  succeeded  in 
locating  the  exiled  Ahmet,  whom  he  found  in 
the  depths  of  poverty  and  despair.  Seated  cross- 
legged  beside  him  in  a  native  coffee-house,  Eaton 
outlined  his  plan  and  proposition.  He  told  Ahmet 
that  the  United  States  would  undertake  to  restore 
him  to  the  Tripolitan  throne  upon  his  agreeing  to 
repay  the  expenses  of  the  expedition  immediately 
upon  his  restoration,  and  upon  the  condition  that 
Eaton  should  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  land 
forces  throughout  the  campaign,  Ahmet  and  his 
followers  to  promise  him  implicit  obedience.  Ah 
met  snapped  at  the  chance,  slim  though  it  was, 
to  regain  his  kingdom,  as  a  starving  dog  snaps  at 
a  proffered  bone.  Eaton's  plan  of  campaign  was 
as  simple  as  it  was  reckless.  He  proposed  to 
recruit  a  force  of  Greek  and  Arab  mercenaries, 
officered  by  Americans,  in  Alexandria,  and,  follow 
ing  the  North  African  coast-line  westward  across 
the  Libyan  Desert,  to  surprise  and  capture  Derna 
(or,  as  it  was  spelled  in  those  days,  Derne),  the 
capital  of  the  easternmost  and  richest  province  of 
Tripoli.  With  Derna  as  a  base  of  operations,  and 
with  the  co-operation  of  the  American  fleet,  he 
held  that  it  would  be  a  comparatively  simple 
matter  to  push  on  along  the  coast,  taking  in  turn 
Benghazi,  Tobruk,  and  the  city  of  Tripoli  itself. 

57 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

The  chief  merit  of  the  scheme  lay  in  its  sheer 
audacity,  for  of  all  the  leaders  who  have  invaded 
Africa,  this  unknown  American  was  the  only  one 
who  had  the  courage  to  face  the  perils  of  a  march 
across  a  waterless,  trackless,  sun-scorched,  and 
uninhabited  desert.  But  there  was  in  Eaton  the 
stuff  of  which  great  conquerors  are  made,  and 
instead  of  letting  his  mind  dwell  on  the  dangers 
which  the  desert  had  to  offer,  he  dreamed  of  the 
triumphs  which  awaited  him  beyond  it. 

To  raise  the  men  for  so  hazardous  an  expedi 
tion,  Eaton  had  need  of  all  the  energy  and  mag 
netism  at  his  command,  alternately  employing  the 
specious  promises  of  a  recruiting  sergeant  and  the 
persuasive  arguments  of  a  campaign  orator.  On 
March  3,  1805,  Eaton  and  the  man  to  whom  he  had 
promised  a  kingdom  reviewed  their  forlorn  hope 
— and  it  was  very  forlorn  indeed — at  a  spot  called 
the  Arab's  Tower,  some  forty  miles  southwest  of 
Alexandria.  I  doubt  if  so  strangely  assorted  a 
force  ever  marched  and  fought  under  the  shadow 
of  our  flag.  The  army,  if  army  it  could  be  called, 
consisted  of  eight  Americans  besides  Eaton:  Lieu 
tenant  O'Barron,  Sergeant  Peck,  and  six  marines 
borrowed  from  the  American  fleet;  thirty-four 
Greeks,  who  went  along  professedly  because  they 
wanted  to  fight  the  Moslem,  but  really  because 

58 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

they  needed  the  money;  twenty-five  Egyptian 
Copts,  Christians  at  least  in  name,  who  claimed 
to  be  trained  artillerymen,  and  to  lend  color  to 
their  assertion  brought  with  them  a  small  brass 
field-gun;  those  of  Ahmet's  personal  adherents  who 
had  fled  with  him  into  exile,  numbering  about 
ninety  men;  and  a  squadron  of  Arab  mercenaries, 
whose  services  had  been  obtained  by  the  promise 
of  unlimited  opportunities  for  loot — these  with  the 
drivers  of  the  baggage-camels  bringing  the  total 
strength  of  the  "Army  of  North  Africa"  to  less 
than  four  hundred  men.  With  this  motley  and  ill- 
disciplined  force  behind  him,  and  six  hundred  miles 
of  yellow  sand  in  front,  Eaton  turned  his  horse's 
nose  Tripoliward,  so  that  at  about  the  time  Presi 
dent  Jefferson  was  delivering  his  second  inaugural 
address  the  adventurous  American  was  leading  his 
little  army  across  the  desert,  with  the  courage  of 
an  Alexander  the  Great,  to  conquer  an  African 
kingdom. 

The  task  which  lay  before  him  was  one  which 
great  military  leaders,  all  down  the  ages,  had  de 
clared  impossible.  For  a  distance  equal  to  that 
from  Philadelphia  to  Chicago  stretched  an  unbro 
ken  expanse  of  pitiless,  sun-scorched  desert,  boast 
ing  no  single  living  thing  save  ah  occasional 
band  of  nomad  Arabs  or  a  herd  of  gazelles.  Mid- 
59 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

way  between  Alexandria  and  Derna  was  the  in 
significant  port  of  Bomb  a,  where,  according  to  a 
prearranged  plan,  the  Argus,  under  Captain  Isaac 
Hull — the  same  who  became  famous  a  few  years 
later  for  his  victories  over  the  British  in  the  War 
of  1812 — was  to  meet  the  expedition  with  supplies. 
Unless  you  have  seen  the  desert  it  will  be  difficult 
for  you  to  appreciate  how  hazardous  this  ad 
venture  really  was.  Imagine  a  sea  of  yellow  sand 
with  billow  after  billow  stretching  in  every  direc 
tion  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see;  without  a  tree,  a 
shrub,  a  plant,  a  blade  of  grass;  without  a  river, 
a  brook,  a  drop  of  water  except,  at  long  intervals, 
a  stagnant,  green-scummed  pool;  the  air  like  a 
blast  from  an  open  furnace-door  and  overhead  a 
sky  pitiless  as  molten  brass!  During  the  seven 
weeks  of  the  march  the  thermometer  never  dropped 
during  the  day  below  120  degrees. 

The  arrangements  for  the  transport  had  been 
left  to  Ahmet  Pasha,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
expedition  was  two  hundred  miles  into  the  desert, 
and  the  camel-drivers  abruptly  halted  and  an 
nounced  that  they  were  going  back  to  Egypt,  that 
Eaton  learned  that  they  had  been  engaged  only  to 
that  point.  As  the  desertion  of  the  camel-drivers 
and  the  consequent  inability  to  transport  the  tents, 
ammunition,  and  supplies  would  wreck  the  expe- 

60 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

dition,  Eaton  pleaded  with  the  men  to  stick  by 
him  two  or  three  days  longer,  until  he  could  reach 
an  encampment  of  Arabs  with  whom  he  could 
make  another  contract.  This  they  consented  to 
do  on  condition  that  they  were  paid  in  advance. 
By  borrowing  every  piaster  which  his  Americans 
and  Greeks  had  to  lend,  Eaton  succeeded  in  rais 
ing  six  hundred  and  seventy-three  dollars,  and 
with  this  the  camel-drivers  were  apparently  con 
tent.  Nothing  shows  more  strikingly  the  shoe 
string  on  which  the  enterprise  was  being  run  than 
the  fact  that  this  unexpected  disbursement  re 
duced  Eaton's  war-chest  to  three  Venetian  sequins 
— equivalent  to  six  dollars  and  fifty-four  cents! 
Despite  this  payment,  all  but  four  of  the  camel- 
drivers  deserted  the  very  next  night,  and  the  four 
that  remained  sullenly  refused  to  go  any  far 
ther.  In  the  darkness  of  the  following  night  they, 
too,  quietly  untethered  their  camels  and  slipped 
silently  away.  Here,  then,  were  three  hundred 
and  fifty  men,  with  a  rapidly  diminishing  supply 
of  food  and  water  and  absolutely  no  means  of 
transport,  as  completely  marooned  as  though  they 
were  on  a  desert  island. 

To  make  matters  worse,  if  such  a  thing  were 
possible,  Eaton  learned  that  Ahmet  had  induced 
his  Tripolitans  and  the  Arabs  to  refuse  to  advance 

61 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

until  they  had  news  of  the  arrival  of  the  Argus  at 
Bomba.  Eaton,  striding  across  to  Ahmet's  tent, 
shook  his  fist  menacingly  in  the  face  of  the  crin 
ging  Tripolitan.  "I  know  you're  a  coward,"  said 
he,  "and  I  suspect  that  you're  a  traitor  and  I've 
a  damned  good  mind  to  have  you  shot."  The 
Pasha,  now  thoroughly  frightened,  replied  that 
his  men  were  too  tired  to  march  any  farther. 
"You  can  take  your  choice  between  marching  and 
starving,"  Eaton  retorted,  turning  on  his  heel, 
and  placing  a  guard  of  American  marines  around 
the  tent  containing  the  provisions,  he  ordered 
them  to  shoot  the  first  Arab  who  approached  it. 
This  resolute  action  had  an  immediate  effect, 
for  the  Pasha  and  his  men  lost  their  tired  feeling 
with  amazing  quickness,  fifty  of  the  camel-drivers 
returned,  and  the  desperate  march  was  resumed. 
It  was  but  a  day  or  two,  however,  before  the 
Arabs  became  as  turbulent  and  unruly  as  ever. 
Then  another  mutiny  broke  out,  Ahmet  and 
his  people  announcing  that  they  preferred  to  be 
well-fed  cowards  rather  than  starved  heroes,  and 
that  they  were  going  back  to  the  flesh-pots  of 
Egypt  forthwith.  Just  as  they  were  on  the  point 
of  departure,  however,  a  messenger  who  had  been 
despatched  to  Bomba  reached  camp  with  the 
news  that  the  Argus  was  awaiting  them  in  the 

62 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

harbor.  These  unexpected  delays  had  wholly  ex 
hausted  the  supplies,  which  were  slim  enough, 
goodness  knows,  in  the  beginning,  so  that  during 
the  remainder  of  the  march  to  Bomba  they  were 
compelled  to  kill  some  of  the  camels  for  food, 
living  upon  them  and  upon  such  roots  as  they 
could  gather  on  the  way. 

It  was  a  half-starved  and  utterly  exhausted 
expedition  that  plodded  up  the  sand  dunes  which 
overlook  the  little  port  of  Bomba,  so  what  must 
their  despair  have  been  when  they  found  no  vessel 
awaiting  them  in  the  harbor,  and  that  the  town 
itself  had  been  deserted.  Captain  Hull,  appar 
ently  having  given  them  up  as  lost,  had  departed. 
This  time  a  more  serious  mutiny  occurred,  the 
Arabs,  desperate  with  hunger  and  furious  from 
disappointment,  preparing  to  attack  Eaton  and 
his  handful  of  Europeans.  Appreciating  the  peril 
of  his  position,  Eaton  hastily  formed  his  men 
into  a  hollow  square.  Just  as  the  Arabs  were  pre 
paring  to  charge  down  upon  them  the  musket  of 
one  of  the  marines  was  prematurely  discharged, 
the  bullet  whistling  in  uncomfortable  proximity 
to  the  Pasha's  ear.  So  terror-stricken  was  that 
worthy  that  he  called  off  his  men  and  attempted 
to  parley  with  Eaton,  who,  standing  alone  well  in 
front  of  his  command,  relieved  his  mind  by  telling 

63 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Ahmet  his  opinion  of  him  in  what,  according  to 
the  accounts  of  those  who  heard  it,  must  have 
been  an  epic  in  objurgation.  While  the  two  fac 
tions  were  growling  at  each  other  like  angry  bull 
dogs  one  of  the  Americans,  happening  to  glance 
seaward,  suddenly  broke  the  dangerous  tension 
by  shouting:  "A  sail!  A  sail!"  Hull,  true  to 
his  promise,  was  returning,  and  the  expedition 
was  saved.  Supplies  were  quickly  landed  from 
the  Argus  for  the  starving  men;  with  full  stomachs 
the  courage  of  the  Arabs  returned,  and  Eaton  and 
his  little  band  once  more  turned  their  faces  toward 
the  setting  sun. 

On  the  evening  of  April  25  the  vanguard  sighted 
the  walls  of  Derna.  A  feat  that  veteran  soldiers 
had  jeered  at  as  impossible  had  been  accomplished, 
and  Eaton,  without  the  loss  of  a  man,  had  brought 
his  army  across  six  hundred  miles  of  desert,  in  the 
heat  of  an  African  spring,  and  in  the  remarkable 
time,  when  the  scantiness  of  the  rations  and  the 
many  delays  are  considered,  of  fifty-two  days. 
With  their  goal  actually  in  sight,  still  another 
mutiny  took  place,  the  craven  Arabs  claiming 
that  they  were  too  few  in  number  to  attempt  the 
capture  of  a  walled  and  heavily  garrisoned  city, 
and  it  was  not  until  Eaton  promised  them  a  bonus 
of  two  thousand  dollars  if  they  succeeded  in  taking 

64 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

it  that  they  could  be  induced  to  advance.  The 
more  one  learns  of  this  man  the  more  one  must 
admire  his  unfailing  resource,  his  tenacity  of  pur 
pose,  and  his  bull-dog  courage;  for,  in  addition  to 
the  appalling  natural  obstacles  which  he  overcame, 
he  was  constantly  harried  by  intrigue,  treachery, 
and  cowardice. 

On  the  morning  of  the  26th  a  message  was 
sent  to  the  governor  of  Derna,  under  a  flag  of 
truce,  offering  him  full  amnesty  if  he  would  sur 
render  and  declare  his  allegiance  to  his  rightful 
sovereign,  Ahmet.  The  answer  that  came  back 
was  as  curt  as  it  was  conclusive:  "My  head  or 
yours,"  it  read.  Just  as  the  sun  was  rising  above 
the  sand-dunes  the  following  morning  the  Argus, 
the  Nautilus,  and  the  Hornet  swept  grandly  into 
the  harbor,  their  crews  at  quarters,  their  decks 
cleared  for  action,  and  the  red-white-and-blue 
ensign  of  the  oversea  republic  floating  defiantly 
from  their  main  trucks.  Under  cover  of  a  terrific 
bombardment  by  the  war-ships,  Eaton's  force 
advanced  upon  the  city,  planning,  with  their 
single  field-piece,  to  effect  a  breach  in  the  walls 
and  carry  the  place  by  storm.  So  murderous  was 
the  fire  that  the  Tripolitan  riflemen  poured  into 
them  from  the  walls  and  housetops,  however, 
that  they  were  thrown  into  confusion,  their  single 

65 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

piece  of  artillery  was  put  out  of  action  by  a  well- 
directed  cannon-shot,  and  Eaton  himself  was 
severely  wounded.  Seeing  that  his  raw  troops 
were  on  the  verge  of  panic,  and  knowing  that  his 
only  chance  of  holding  them  together  lay  in  a 
charge,  Eaton  ordered  his  buglers  to  sound  the 
advance,  and  with  a  cheer  like  the  roar  of  a  storm 
his  whole  line — Americans,  Greeks,  and  Arabs — 
swept  forward  on  a  run.  "Come  on,  boys!" 
shouted  Eaton,  as  he  raced  ahead,  sword  in  one 
hand,  pistol  in  the  other.  "At  the  double!  Fol 
low  me!  Follow  me!"  And  follow  him  they  did. 
Cheering  like  madmen  they  crossed  a  field  swept 
by  a  withering  rifle-fire.  They  clambered  over  the 
ramparts,  and  by  the  very  fury  of  their  assault 
drove  back  the  defenders,  who  .outnumbered  them 
twenty  to  one.  They  fought  with  them  hand 
to  hand,  sabre  against  cimiter,  bayonet  against 
clubbed  matchlock.  Swarming  into  the  batteries, 
they  cut  down  the  gunners  and  turned  their  guns 
upon  the  town.  The  defences  of  the  city  once  in 
his  possession,  Eaton  directed  an  assault  upon  the 
palace,  where  the  governor  had  taken  refuge, 
utilizing  his  Arab  cavalry  meanwhile  to  cut  off 
the  retreat  of  the  flying  garrison.  Before  the  sun 
had  disappeared  into  the  Mediterranean,  Eaton,  at 
a  cost  of  only  fourteen  killed  and  wounded  (all  of 

66 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

whom,  by  the  way,  were  Americans  and  Greeks), 
had  made  himself  master  of  Derna.  His  moment 
of  triumph  came  when,  still  begrimed  with  dirt 
and  powder,  his  arm  in  a  blood-stained  sling,  he 
stood  with  drawn  sword  before  the  line  formed  by 
his  ragged  soldiers  and  the  trim  bluejackets  from 
the  fleet,  and,  watching  a  ball  of  bunting  creep  up 
that  palace  flagstaff  from  which  so  recently  had 
flaunted  the  banner  of  Tripoli,  saw  it  suddenly 
break  out  into  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Our  flag, 
for  the  first  and  only  time,  flew  above  a  fortifica 
tion  on  that  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Reinforced  by  a  party  of  bluejackets  from  the 
fleet,  Eaton  wasted  not  a  moment  in  preparing 
the  city  for  defence.  He  was  none  too  soon,  either, 
for  the  Bashaw,  learning  of  the  loss  of  his  richest 
province,  despatched  an  overwhelming  force  for 
its  recapture.  This  army  arrived  before  the  walls 
of  Derna  on  May  13,  and  immediately  made  an 
assault,  which  Eaton  repulsed,  as  he  did  a  second 
one  a  few  weeks  later.  By  this  time  the  news  of 
Eaton's  victory  had  spread  across  North  Africa 
as  fire  spreads  in  dry  grass,  and  thousands  of  na 
tives,  many  of  them  deserters  from  the  Bashaw's 
forces,  hastened  to  assert  their  undying  loyalty 
and  to  offer  their  services  to  Ahmet,  for  your 
Arab  is  far-seeing  and  takes  good  care  to  be 

67 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

found  on  the  side  which  he  believes  to  be  the 
winning  one.  With  his  army  thus  largely  aug 
mented,  with  ample  supplies,  with  Derna  as  a 
base  of  operations,  and  with  his  own  prestige 
equivalent  to  an  additional  regiment,  Eaton  had 
completed  the  preparations  for  continuing  his 
victorious  advance  along  the  African  coast-line. 
There  is  little  doubt,  indeed,  that  with  the  co 
operation  of  the  fleet  he  could  have  marched  on 
to  Benghazi,  taken  that  city  as  easily  as  he  did 
Derna,  and  in  due  time  planted  the  American 
flag  on  the  castle  of  Tripoli  itself. 

So  it  was  with  undisguised  amazement  and  in 
dignation  that  on  June  12  he  received  orders  from 
Commodore  Rodgers  to  evacuate  Derna  and  to 
withdraw  his  forces  from  Tripoli,  Colonel  Tobias 
Lear,  the  American  consul  at  Algiers,  having,  in 
the  face  of  Eaton's  successes,  signed  an  inglorious 
treaty  of  peace  with  the  Bashaw  of  Tripoli.  No 
more  degrading  terms  were  ever  assented  to  by  a 
civilized  power.  The  Bashaw  at  first  demanded 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  release  of 
Bainbridge  and  the  Philadelphia 's  crew,  but  as 
Eaton  had  captured  a  large  number  of  Tripolitans 
in  the  storming  of  Derna,  an  exchange  was  eventu 
ally  arranged,  the  United  States  agreeing  to  pay 
the  pirate  ruler  sixty  thousand  dollars  to  boot. 

68 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

The  city  of  Derna  and  the  great  province  of  which 
it  was  the  capital  were  surrendered  without  so 
much  as  the  mention  of  an  equivalent,  not  even 
the  relinquishment  of  the  ransom  of  the  American 
prisoners.  The  unfortunate  Ahmet  Pasha,  who 
had  been  decoyed  from  his  refuge  in  Egypt  on  the 
promise  of  American  assistance  in  effecting  his 
restoration,  was  deserted  at  a  moment  when  suc 
cess  was  actually  ours,  and  had  to  fly  for  his  life 
to  Sicily,  his  wife  and  children  being  held  as  hos 
tages  by  his  brother  and  the  heads  of  his  adherents 
being  exposed  on  the  walls  of  the  Tripolitan  cap 
ital.  Thus  shamefully  ended  one  of  the  most 
gallant  and  romantic  exploits  in  the  history  of 
American  arms;  thus  terminated  an  episode  which, 
more  than  any  other  agency,  compelled  the  rulers 
of  the  Barbary  coast  to  respect  the  citizens  and 
fear  the  wrath  of  the  United  States.  Though  an 
expedition  of  scarcely  four  hundred  men  may 
sound  insignificant,  the  humbling  of  a  Barbary 
power  was  an  achievement  which  every  European 
nation  had  attempted  and  which  none  of  them 
had  accomplished. 

Disappointed  and  disgusted,  Eaton  returned  to 
the  United  States  in  November,  1805,  to  find 
himself  a  national  hero.  From  the  moment  he 
set  his  foot  on  American  soil  he  was  greeted  with 

69 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

cheers  wherever  he  appeared;  it  was  "roses,  roses 
all  the  way."  The  cities  of  Washington  and 
Richmond  honored  him  with  public  dinners; 
Massachusetts,  "desirous  to  perpetuate  the  re 
membrance  of  an  heroic  enterprise,"  granted  him 
ten  thousand  acres  of  land  in  Maine;  Boston 
named  a  street  after  the  city  which  he  had  cap 
tured  against  such  fearful  odds;  President  Jeffer 
son  lauded  him  in  his  annual  message;  and  in 
recognition  of  his  services  in  effecting  the  release 
of  some  Danish  captives  in  Tripoli,  he  was  pre 
sented  by  the  King  of  Denmark  with  a  jewelled 
snuff-box.  He  was  complimented  everywhere  ex 
cept  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  received  every 
honor  except  that  which  he  most  deserved — a  vote 
of  thanks  from  Congress.  Though  his  expedition 
had  involved  an  expense  of  twenty-three  thou 
sand  dollars,  for  which  he  had  given  his  personal 
notes  and  the  repayment  of  which  exhausted  all 
his  means,  Congress  never  reimbursed  him.  Not 
withstanding  the  astounding  indifference  and  in 
gratitude  of  the  nation  on  whose  flag  he  had  shed 
such  lustre,  he  indignantly  rejected  the  advances 
of  Aaron  Burr,  who  tried  ineffectually  to  enlist 
him  in  his  conspiracy  to  establish  an  empire  be 
yond  the  Mississippi,  and  died,  poverty-stricken 
and  broken-hearted,  on  June  i,  1811.  Though 

70 


Capturing  An  African  Kingdom 

the  most  modest  of  monuments  marks  his  resting- 
place  in  Brimfield  churchyard,  and  though  not 
one  in  a  hundred  thousand  of  his  countrymen 
have  so  much  as  heard  his  name,  his  fame  still 
lives  in  that  wild  and  far-off  region  where  it  took 
an  Italian  army  of  forty  thousand  men  to  repeat 
the  exploit  which  he  accomplished  with  four 
hundred. 


THE  LAST  FIGHT  OF  THE  "GENERAL 
ARMSTRONG" 


THE  LAST  FIGHT  OF  THE  "GENERAL 
ARMSTRONG" 

WE  leaned  over  the  rail  of  the  Hamburg, 
Colonel  Roosevelt  and  I,  and  watched  the 
olive  hills  of  Fayal  rise  from  the  turquoise  sea. 
Houses  white  as  chalk  began  to  peep  from  among 
the  orange  groves;  what  looked  at  first  sight  to 
be  a  yellow  snake  turned  into  a  winding  road; 
then  we  rounded  a  headland,  and  the  U-shaped 
harbor,  edged  by  a  sleepy  town  and  com 
manded  by  a  crumbling  fortress,  lay  before  us. 
"In  there,"  said  the  ex-President,  pointing  eagerly 
as  our  anchor  rumbled  down,  "was  waged  one  of 
the  most  desperate  sea-fights  ever  fought,  and  one 
of  the  least  known;  in  there  lies  the  wreck  of  the 
General  Armstrong,  the  privateer  that  stood  off 
twenty  times  her  strength  in  British  men  and  guns, 
and  thereby  saved  Louisiana  from  invasion.  It  is 
a  story  that  should  make  the  thrills  of  patriotism 
run  up  and  down  the  back  of  every  right-thinking 
American." 

Everything   about  her,   from   the   carved   and 
gilded  figure-head,  past  the  rakish,  slanting  masts 

75 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

to  the  slender  stern,  indicated  the  privateer.  As 
she  stood  into  the  roadstead  of  Fayal  late  in 
the  afternoon  of  September  26,  1814,  black-hulled 
and  white-sparred,  carrying  an  amazing  spread  of 
snowy  canvas,  she  made  a  picture  that  brought  a 
grunt  of  approval  even  from  the  surly  Azorian 
pilot.  Hardly  had  the  red-white-and-blue  ensign 
showing  her  nationality  fluttered  to  her  peak  be 
fore  a  harbor  skiff  bearing  the  American  consul, 
Dabney,  shot  out  from  shore;  for  these  were 
troublous  times  on  the  Atlantic,  and  letters  from 
the  States  were  few  and  far  between.  Rounding 
her  stern,  he  read,  with  a  thrill  of  pride,  "General 
Armstrong,  New  York" 

The  very  name  stood  for  romance,  valor,  hair 
breadth  escape.  For  of  all  the  two-hundred-odd 
privateers  that  put  out  from  American  ports  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  1812  to  prey  on  Brit 
ish  commerce,  none  had  won  so  high  a  place  in 
the  popular  imagination  as  this  trim-built,  black- 
hulled  schooner.  Built  for  speed,  and  carrying  a 
spread  of  canvas  at  which  most  skippers  would 
have  stood  aghast,  she  was  the  fastest  and  best- 
handled  privateer  afloat,  and  had  always  been  able 
to  show  her  heels  to  the  enemy  on  the  rare  occa 
sions  when  the  superior  range  of  her  seven  guns 
had  failed  to  pound  him  into  submission.  Her 

76 


The  "General  Armstrong" 

list  of  captures  had  made  rich  men  of  her  owners, 
and  had  caused  Lloyd's  to  raise  the  insurance  on 
a  vessel  merely  crossing  the  English  Channel  to 
thirteen  guineas  in  the  hundred. 

The  story  of  her  desperate  encounter  off  the 
mouth  of  the  Surinam  River  with  the  British  sloop 
of  war  Coquette,  with  four  times  her  weight  in  guns, 
had  fired  the  popular  imagination  as  had  few  other 
events  of  the  war.  Although  her  commander, 
Samuel  Chester  Reid,  was  not  long  past  his  thir 
tieth  birthday,  no  more  skilful  navigator  or  daring 
fighter  ever  trod  a  quarter-deck,  and  his  crew  of 
ninety  men — Down-East  fishermen,  old  man-o'- 
war's  men,  Creole  privateersmen  who  had  fought 
under  Lafitte,  reckless  adventurers  of  every  sort 
and  kind — would  have  warmed  the  heart  of  bluff 
old  John  Paul  Jones  himself. 

Just  as  dusk  was  falling  the  officer  on  watch 
reported  a  sail  in  the  offing,  and  Reid  and  the  con 
sul,  hurrying  on  deck,  made  out  the  British  brig 
Carnation,  of  eighteen  guns,  with  two  other  war- 
vessels  in  her  wake:  the  thirty-eight-gun  frigate 
Rota,  and  the  Plantagenet,  of  seventy-four.  Now, 
as  the  privateer  lay  in  the  innermost  harbor, 
where  a  dead  calm  prevailed,  while  the  three 
British  ships  were  fast  approaching  before  the 
brisk  breeze  which  was  blowing  outside,  Reid, 
who  knew  the  line  which  marks  foolhardiness  from 

77 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

courage,  appreciating  that  the  chances  of  his  being 
able  to  hoist  anchor,  make  sail,  and  get  out  of 
the  harbor  before  the  British  squadron  arrived  to 
block  the  entrance  were  almost  infinitesimal,  de 
cided  to  stay  where  he  was  and  trust  to  the 
neutrality  of  the  port,  a  decision  that  was  con 
firmed  by  the  assurances  of  Consul  Dabney  that 
the  British  would  not  dare  to  attack  a  vessel  lying 
in  a  friendly  harbor.  But  therein  the  consul  was 
mistaken,  for  throughout  the  entire  duration  of 
the  war  the  British  as  cynically  disregarded  the 
observance  of  international  law  and  the  rights  of 
neutrals  as  though  they  did  not  exist. 

The  Carnation,  learning  the  identity  of  the 
American  vessel  from  the  pilot,  hauled  close  into 
the  harbor,  not  letting  go  her  anchor  until  she  was 
within  pistol-shot  of  the  General  Armstrong.  In 
stantly  a  string  of  signal-flags  fluttered  from  her 
mast,  and  the  message  was  promptly  acknowledged 
by  her  approaching  consorts,  which  thereupon 
proceeded  to  stand  ofF  and  on  across  the  mouth 
of  the  harbor,  thus  barring  any  chance  of  the 
privateer  making  her  escape.  So  great  was  the 
commotion  which  ensued  on  the  Carnation  s  deck 
that  Reid,  becoming  suspicious  of  the  English 
man's  good  faith,  warped  his  ship  under  the  very 
guns  of  the  Portuguese  fort. 

About  eight  o'clock,  just  as  dark  had  fallen, 

78 


The  "  General  Armstrong " 

Captain  Reid  saw  four  boats  slip  silently  from  the 
shadow  of  the  Carnation  and  pull  toward  him 
with  muffled  oars.  If  anything  more  were  needed 
to  convince  him  of  their  hostile  intentions,  the 
moon  at  that  moment  appeared  from  behind  a 
cloud  and  was  reflected  by  the  scores  of  cutlasses 
and  musket-barrels  in  all  four  of  the  approaching 
boats.  As  they  came  within  hailing  distance 
Reid  swung  himself  into  the  shrouds. 

"Boats  there!"  he  shouted,  making  a  trumpet 
of  his  hands.  "Come  no  nearer!  For  your  own 
safety  I  warn  you!" 

At  his  hail  the  boats  halted,  as  though  in  inde 
cision,  and  their  commanders  held  a  whispered 
consultation.  Then,  apparently  deciding  to  take 
the  risk,  and  hoping,  no  doubt,  to  catch  the  priva 
teer  unprepared,  they  gave  the  order:  "Give  way 
all ! "  The  oars  caught  the  water  together,  and  the 
four  boats,  loaded  to  the  gunwales  with  sailors 
and  marines,  came  racing  on. 

"Let  'em  have  it,  boys!"  roared  Reid,  and  at 
the  word  a  stream  of  flame  leaped  from  the  dark 
side  of  the  privateer  and  a  torrent  of  grape  swept 
the  crowded  boats,  almost  annihilating  one  of  the 
crews  and  sending  the  others,  crippled  and  bleed 
ing,  back  to  the  shelter  of  their  ship. 

By  this  time  the  moon  had  fully  risen,   and 
79 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

showed  the  heights  overlooking  the  harbor  to  be 
black  with  spectators,  among  whom  were  the 
Portuguese  governor  and  his  staff;  but  the  castle, 
either  from  weakness  or  fear,  showed  no  signs  of 
resenting  the  outrageous  breach  of  neutrality  to 
which  the  port  had  been  subjected.  Angered  and 
chagrined  at  their  repulse,  the  British  now  threw 
all  caution  aside.  The  long-boats  and  gigs  of  all 
three  ships  were  lowered,  and  into  them  were 
crowded  nearly  four  hundred  men,  armed  with 
muskets,  pistols,  and  cutlasses.  Reid,  seeing  that 
an  attack  was  to  be  made  in  force,  proceeded  to 
warp  his  vessel  still  closer  inshore,  mooring  her 
stem  and  stern  within  a  few  rods  of  the  castle. 
Moving  two  of  the  nine-pounders  across  the  deck, 
and  cutting  ports  for  them  in  the  bulwarks,  he 
brought  five  guns,  in  addition  to  his  famous 
"long  torn,"  to  bear  on  the  enemy.  With  cannon 
double-shotted,  boarding-nets  triced  up,  and  decks 
cleared  for  action,  the  crew  of  the  General  Arm 
strong  lay  down  beside  their  guns  to  await  the 
British  attack. 

It  was  not  long  in  coming.  Just  as  the  bells  of 
the  old  Portuguese  cathedral  boomed  twelve  a 
dozen  boats,  loaded  to  the  water's  edge  with 
sailors  and  marines,  whose  burnished  weapons 
were  like  so  many  mirrors  under  the  rays  of  the 

80 


The  "General  Armstrong" 

moon,  swung  around  a  promontory  behind  which 
they  had  been  forming  and,  with  measured  stroke 
of  oars,  came  sweeping  down  upon  the  lone  priva 
teer.  The  decks  of  the  General  Armstrong  were 
black  and  silent,  but  round  each  gun  clustered  its 
crew  of  half-naked  gunners,  and  behind  the  bul 
warks  knelt  a  line  of  cool,  grim  riflemen,  eyes 
sighting  down  their  barrels,  cheeks  pressed  close 
against  the  butts.  Up  and  down  behind  his  men 
paced  Reid,  the  skipper,  cool  as  a  winter's  morning. 

"Hold  your  fire  until  I  give  the  word,  boys,"  he 
cautioned  quietly.  "Wait  till  they  get  within 
range,  and  then  teach  'em  better  manners." 

Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  shadowy  line  of 
boats,  the  oars  rising  and  falling  with  the  faultless 
rhythm  which  marks  the  veteran  man-o'-war's 
man.  On  they  came,  and  now  the  waiting  Ameri 
cans  could  make  out  the  gilt-lettered  hat-bands 
of  the  bluejackets  and  the  white  cross-belts  and 
the  brass  buttons  on  the  tunics  of  the  marines. 
A  moment  more  and  those  on  the  Armstrong  s 
deck  could  see,  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  leather 
shakoes,  the  tense,  white  faces  of  the  British 
boarders. 

"Now,  boys!"  roared  Captain  Reid;  "let  'em 
have  it  for  the  honor  of  the  flag!"  and  from  the 
side  of  the  privateer  leaped  a  blast  of  flame  and 

81 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

lead,  cannon  and  musketry  crashing  in  chorus. 
Never  were  men  taken  more  completely  by  sur 
prise  than  were  those  British  sailors,  for  they  had 
expected  that  Reid,  relying  on  the  neutrality  of 
the  port,  would  be  quite  unprepared  to  resist  them. 
But,  though  the  American  fire  had  caused  terrible 
havoc  in  the  crowded  boats,  with  the  bull-dog 
courage  for  which  the  British  sailors  were  justly 
famous,  they  kept  indomitably  on.  "Give  way! 
Give  way  all!"  screamed  the  boy-coxswains,  and 
in  the  face  of  a  withering  rifle-fire  the  sailors,  re 
covering  from  their  momentary  panic,  bent  grimly 
to  their  oars.  Through  a  perfect  hail-storm  of  lead, 
right  up  to  the  side  of  the  privateer,  they  swept. 
Six  boats  made  fast  to  her  quarter  and  six  more 
to  her  bow.  " Boarders  up  and  away!"  bellowed 
the  officers,  hacking  desperately  at  the  nettings 
with  their  swords,  and  firing  their  pistols  point- 
blank  into  the  faces  they  saw  above  them.  The 
Armstrong's  gunners,  unable  to  depress  the  muz 
zles  of  their  guns  enough  so  that  they  could 
be  brought  to  bear,  lifted  the  solid  shot  and 
dropped  them  from  the  rail  into  the  British 
boats,  mangling  their  crews  and  crashing  through 
their  bottoms.  From  the  shelter  of  the  bulwarks 
the  American  riflemen  fired  and  loaded  and  fired 
again,  while  the  negro  cook  and  his  assistant 

82 


The  "General  Armstrong" 

played  their  part  in  the  defence  by  pouring  kettles 
of  boiling  water  over  the  British  who  were  attempt 
ing  to  scramble  up  the  sides,  sending  them  back 
into  their  boats  again  scalded  and  groaning  with 
pain. 

There  has  been  no  fiercer  struggle  in  all  the  an 
nals  of  the  sea.  The  Yankee  gunners,  some  of 
them  gray-haired  men  who  had  seen  service  with 
John  Paul  Jones  in  the  Bon  Homme  Richard, 
changed  from  cannon-balls  to  grape,  and  from 
grape  to  bags  of  bullets,  so  that  by  the  time  the 
British  boats  drew  alongside  they  were  little  more 
than  floating  shambles.  The  dark  waters  of  the 
harbor  were  lighted  up  by  spurts  of  flame  from 
muskets  and  cannon;  the  high,  shrill  yell  of 
the  Yankee  privateersmen  rose  above  the  deep- 
throated  hurrahs  of  the  English  sailors;  the  air 
was  filled  with  the  shouts  and  oaths  of  the  com 
batants,  the  shrieks  and  groans  of  the  wounded, 
the  incessant  trampling  of  struggling  men  upon  the 
decks,  the  splash  of  dead  and  injured  falling  over 
board,  the  clash  and  clang  of  steel  on  steel,  and 
all  the  savage,  overwhelming  turmoil  of  a  struggle 
to  the  death.  Urged  on  by  their  officers'  cries  of 
"No  quarter!  Give  the  Yankees  no  quarter!" 
the  British  division  which  had  attacked  the  bow 
hacked  its  way  through  the  nettings,  and  succeeded 

83 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

by  sheer  weight  of  numbers  in  getting  a  footing 
on  the  deck,  all  three  of  the  American  lieutenants 
being  killed  or  disabled  in  the  terrific  hand-to-hand 
struggle  that  ensued. 

At  this  critical  juncture,  when  the  Americans 
on  the  forecastle,  their  officers  fallen  and  their 
guns  dismounted,  were  being  pressed  slowly  back 
by  overwhelming  numbers,  Captain  Reid,  having 
repulsed  the  attack  on  the  Armstrongs  quarter, 
led  the  after  division  forward  at  a  run,  the  priva- 
teersmen,  though  outnumbered  five  to  one,  dri 
ving  the  English  overboard  with  the  resistless  fury 
of  their  onset.  As  the  British  boats,  now  laden 
with  dead  and  dying,  attempted  to  withdraw  into 
safety,  they  were  raked  again  and  again  with 
showers  of  lead;  two  of  them  sank,  two  of  them 
were  captured  by  the  Americans.  Finally,  with 
nearly  three  hundred  of  their  men — three-quarters 
of  the  cutting-out  force — dead  or  wounded,  the 
British,  now  cowed  and  discouraged,  pulled  slowly 
and  painfully  out  of  range.  Some  of  the  most 
brilliant  victories  the  British  navy  has  ever  gained 
were  far  less  dearly  purchased. 

At  three  in  the  morning  Reid  received  a  note 
from  Consul  Dabney  asking  him  to  come  ashore. 
He  then  learned  that  the  governor  had  sent  a 
letter  to  the  British  commander  asking  him  to 

84 


The  " General  Armstrong" 

desist  from  further  hostilities,  as  several  buildings 
in  the  town  had  been  injured  by  the  British  fire 
and  a  number  of  the  inhabitants  wounded.  To 
this  request  Captain  Lloyd  had  rudely  replied  that 
he  would  have  the  Yankee  privateer  if  he  had  to 
knock  the  town  into  a  heap  of  ruins.  Returning 
on  board,  Reid  ordered  the  dead  and  wounded 
taken  ashore,  and  told  the  crew  to  save  their  per 
sonal  belongings. 

At  daybreak  the  Carnation,  being  of  lighter 
draught  than  the  other  vessels,  stood  close  in  for 
a  third  attack,  opening  on  the  privateer  with  every 
gun  she  could  bring  to  bear.  But  even  in  those 
days  the  fame  of  American  gunners  was  as  wide 
as  the  seas,  and  so  well  did  the  crew  of  the  General 
Armstrong  uphold  their  reputation  that  the  Car 
nation  was  compelled  to  beat  a  demoralized  re 
treat,  with  her  rigging  cut  away,  her  foremast 
about  to  fall,  and  with  several  gaping  holes  be 
tween  wind  and  water.  But  Reid,  appreciating 
that  there  was  absolutely  no  chance  of  escape, 
and  recognizing  that  further  resistance  would  en 
tail  an  unnecessary  sacrifice  of  his  men's  lives,  by 
which  nothing  could  be  gained,  ordered  the  crew 
to  throw  the  nine-pounders  which  had  rendered 
such  valiant  service  overboard  and  to  leave  the 
ship.  The  veteran  gunners,  who  were  as  much  at- 

85 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

tached  to  their  great  black  guns  as  a  cavalryman 
is  to  his  horse,  obeyed  the  order  with  tears  plough 
ing  furrows  down  their  powder-begrimed  cheeks. 
Then  Reid  with  his  own  hand  trained  the  long- 
torn  down  his  vessel's  hatchway,  and  pulling  the 
lanyard  sent  a  charge  of  grape  crashing  through 
her  bottom,  from  which  she  at  once  began  to  sink. 
Ten  minutes  later,  before  a  British  crew  could 
reach  her  side,  the  General  Armstrong  went  to  the 
bottom  with  her  flag  still  defiantly  flying. 

Few  battles  have  been  fought  in  which  the  odds 
were  so  unequal,  and  in  few  battles  have  the  rela 
tive  losses  been  so  astounding.  The  three  British 
war-ships  carried  two  thousand  men  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty  guns,  and  of  the  four  hundred 
men  who  composed  the  boarding  party  they  lost, 
according  to  their  own  accounts,  nearly  three  hun 
dred  killed  and  wounded.  Of  the  American  crew 
of  ninety  men,  two  were  killed  and  seven  wounded. 
This  little  crew  of  privateersmen  had,  in  other 
words,  put  out  of  action  more  than  three  times 
their  own  number  of  British,  and  had  added  one 
more  laurel  to  our  chaplet  of  triumphs  on  the  sea. 

The  Americans  had  scarcely  gained  the  shore 
before  Captain  Lloyd — who,  by  the  way,  had  been 
so  severely  wounded  in  the  leg  that  amputation 
was  necessary — sent  a  peremptory  message  to  the 

86 


The  "  General  Armstrong " 

governor  demanding  their  surrender.  But  the 
men  who  could  not  be  taken  at  sea  were  not  the 
men  to  be  captured  on  land,  and  the  Americans, 
retreating  to  the  mountainous  centre  of  the  island, 
took  possession  of  a  thick-walled  convent,  over 
which  they  hoisted  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  from 
which  they  defied  British  and  Portuguese  alike  to 
come  and  take  them.  No  one  tried. 

All  of  the  following  day  was  spent  by  the  British 
in  burying  their  one  hundred  and  twenty  dead — 
you  can  see  the  white  gravestones  to-day  if  you 
will  take  the  trouble  to  climb  the  hill  behind  the 
little  town — but  it  took  them  a  week  to  repair  the 
damage  caused  by  the  battle.  And  so  deep  was 
their  chagrin  and  mortification  that  when  two 
British  ships  put  into  Fayal  a  few  days  later,  and 
were  ordered  to  take  home  the  wounded,  they 
were  forbidden  to  carry  any  news  of  the  disaster 
back  to  England. 

To  Captain  Reid  and  his  little  band  of  fighters 
is  due  in  no  small  measure  the  credit  of  saving 
New  Orleans  from  capture  and  Louisiana  from 
invasion.  Lloyd's  squadron  was  a  part  of  the 
expedition  then  gathering  at  Pensacola  for  the  in 
vasion  of  the  South,  but  it  was  so  badly  crippled 
in  its  encounter  with  the  privateer  that  it  did  not 
reach  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  until  ten  days  later  than 

87 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

the  expedition  had  planned  to  sail.  The  expedi 
tion  waited  for  Lloyd  and  his  reinforcements,  so 
that  when  it  finally  approached  New  Orleans, 
Jackson  and  his  frontiersmen,  who  had  hastened 
down  by  forced  marches  from  the  North,  had  made 
preparations  to  give  the  English  a  warm  recep 
tion.  Had  the  expedition  arrived  ten  days  earlier 
it  would  have  found  the  Americans  unprepared, 
and  New  Orleans  would  have  fallen. 

Captain  Reid  and  his  men,  landing  on  their  na 
tive  soil  at  Savannah,  found  their  journey  north 
ward  turned  into  a  triumphal  progress.  The  whole 
country  went  wild  with  enthusiasm.  There  was 
not  a  town  or  village  on  the  way  but  did  them 
honor.  The  city  of  Richmond  gave  Captain  Reid 
a  great  banquet,  and  the  State  of  New  York  pre 
sented  him  with  a  sword  of  honor.  But  of  all  the 
tributes  which  were  paid  to  the  little  band  of 
heroes,  none  had  the  flavor  of  the  concluding  line 
of  a  letter  written  by  one  of  the  British  officers  en 
gaged  in  the  action  to  a  relative  in  England.  "If 
this  is  the  way  the  Americans  fight,"  he  wrote, 
"we  may  well  say,  'God  deliver  us  from  our 


enemies/ 


88 


THE  PIRATE  WHO  TURNED  PATRIOT 


THE  PIRATE  WHO  TURNED  PATRIOT 

HOW  many  well-informed  people  are  aware, 
I  wonder,  that  the  fact  that  the  American 
flag,  and  not  the  British,  flies  to-day  over  the 
Mississippi  valley  is  largely  due  to  the  eleventh- 
hour  patriotism  of  a  pirate  ?  Of  the  many  kinds 
of  men  of  many  nationalities  who  have  played 
parts  of  greater  or  less  importance  in  the  making 
of  our  national  history,  none  is  more  completely 
cloaked  in  mystery,  romance,  and  adventure  than 
Jean  Lafitte.  The  last  of  that  long  line  of  buc 
caneers  who  for  more  than  two  centuries  terror 
ized  the  waters  and  ravaged  the  coasts  of  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  his  exploits  make  the  wildest 
fiction  appear  commonplace  and  tame.  Although 
he  was  as  thorough-going  a  pirate  as  ever  plun 
dered  an  honest  merchant-man,  I  do  not  mean  to 
imply  that  he  was  a  leering,  low-browed  scoundrel, 
with  a  red  bandanna  twisted  about  his  head  and 
an  armory  of  assorted  weapons  at  his  waist,  for 
he  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  On  the  contrary,  from 
all  I  can  learn  about  him,  he  appears  to  have  been 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

a  very  gentlemanly  sort  of  person  indeed,  tall 
and  graceful  and  soft- voiced,  and  having  the  most 
charming  manners.  Though  he  regarded  the  law 
with  unconcealed  contempt,  there  came  a  crisis 
in  our  national  history  when  he  placed  patriotism 
above  all  other  considerations,  and  rendered  an 
inestimable  service  to  the  country  whose  laws  he 
had  flouted  and  to  the  State  which  had  set  a 
price  on  his  head.  Indeed,  we  are  indebted  to 
Jean  Lafitte  in  scarcely  less  measure  than  we  are 
to  Andrew  Jackson  for  frustrating  the  British  in 
vasion  and  conquest  of  Louisiana. 

Though  the  palmy  days  of  piracy  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  really  ended  with  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  by  which  time  the  rich  cities  of  Middle 
America  had  been  impoverished  by  repeated  sack 
ings  and  the  gold-freighted  caravels  had  taken  to 
travelling  under  convoy,  even  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  these  storied  waters  still 
offered  many  opportunities  to  lawless  and  enter 
prising  sea-folk.  But  the  pirates  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  unlike  their  forerunners  of  the  seven 
teenth,  preyed  on  slave-ships  rather  than  on 
treasure-galleons.  Consider  the  facts.  On  Jan 
uary  i,  1808,  Congress  passed  an  act  prohibiting 
the  further  importation  of  slaves  into  the  United 
States.  By  this  act  the  recently  acquired  terri- 

92 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

tory  of  Louisiana,  over  which  prosperity  was  ad 
vancing  in  three-league  boots,  was  deprived  of 
its  supply  of  labor.  With  crops  rotting  in  the 
fields  for  lack  of  laborers,  the  price  of  slaves  rose 
until  a  negro  fresh  from  the  coast  of  Africa  would 
readily  bring  a  thousand  dollars  at  auction  in 
New  Orleans.  At  the  same  time,  remember,  ship 
loads  of  slaves  were  being  brought  to  Cuba,  where 
no  such  restrictions  existed,  and  sold  for  three 
hundred  dollars  a  head.  Under  such  conditions 
smuggling  was  inevitable.  At  first  the  smugglers 
bought  their  slaves  in  the  Cuban  market,  and  run 
ning  them  across  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  landed  them 
at  obscure  harbors  on  the  Louisiana  coast,  whence 
they  were  marched  overland  to  New  Orleans  and 
Baton  Rouge.  The  smugglers  soon  saw,  however, 
that  the  slavers  carried  small  crews,  poorly  armed, 
and  quickly  made  up  their  minds  that  it  was  a 
shameful  waste  of  money  to  buy  slaves  when  they 
could  get  them  for  nothing  by  the  menace  of  their 
guns.  In  short,  the  smugglers  became  buccaneers, 
and  as  such  drove  a  thriving  business  in  captured 
cargoes  of  "black  ivory,"  as  the  slaves  were 
euphemistically  called. 

As  the  demand  was  greatest  on  the  rich  new 
lands  along  the  Mississippi,  it  was  at  New  Orleans 
that  the  buccaneers  found  the  most  profitable 

93 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

market  for  their  human  wares,  for  they  could 
easily  sail  up  the  river  to  the  city,  dispose  of  their 
cargoes,  and  be  off  again  with  the  quick  despatch 
of  regular  liners  to  resume  their  depredations. 
But  the  buccaneers  did  not  confine  their  atten 
tion  to  slave-ships,  so  that  in  a  short  time,  de 
spite  the  efforts  of  British,  French,  and  American 
war-ships,  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  became  as  un 
safe  for  all  kinds  of  merchant-vessels  as  they  were 
in  the  days  of  Morgan  and  Kidd. 

As  a  base  for  their  piratical  and  smuggling  oper 
ations,  as  well  as  for  supplies  and  repairs,  the  buc 
caneers  chose  Barataria  Bay,  a  place  which  met 
their  requirements  as  though  made  to  order. 
The  name  is  applied  to  all  of  the  Gulf  coast  of 
Louisiana  between  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  mouth  of  another  considerable  stream 
known  as  the  Bayou  La  Fourche,  the  latter  a 
waterway  to  a  rich  and  populous  region.  The 
Bay  of  Barataria  is  screened  from  the  Gulf,  with 
which  it  is  connected  by  a  deep-water  pass,  by 
the  island  of  Grande  Terre,  the  trees  on  which 
were  high  enough  to  effectually  hide  the  masts  of 
the  buccaneers'  vessels  from  the  view  of  inqui 
sitive  war-ships  cruising  outside.  Between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  La  Fourche  there  is  a  perfect 
network  of  small  but  navigable  waterways  which 

94 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

extend  almost  to  New  Orleans,  so  that  the  buc 
caneers  thus  had  a  back-stairs  route,  as  it  were,  to 
the  city,  which  brought  their  rendezvous  at 
Grande  Terre  within  safe  and  easy  reach  of  the 
great  mart  of  the  Mississippi  valley. 

Such  supplies  as  the  buccaneers  did  not  get 
from  the  ships  they  captured,  they  obtained  by 
purchase  in  New  Orleans.  For  the  chains  which 
were  used  in  making  up  the  caufles  of  slaves  for 
transportation  into  the  interior,  they  were  accus 
tomed  to  patronize  the  blacksmith-shop  of  the 
Brothers  Lafitte,  which  stood — and  still  stands 
— on  the  northeast  corner  of  Bourbon  and  St. 
Philippe  Streets.  Of  the  history  of  these  broth 
ers  prior  to  their  arrival  in  New  Orleans  nothing 
is  definitely  known.  From  their  names,  and  be 
cause  they  spoke  with  the  accent  peculiar  to  the 
Garonne,  they  are  credited  with  having  been 
natives  of  the  south  of  France,  though  whence 
they  came  and  where  they  went  are  questions 
which  have  never  been  satisfactorily  answered. 
They  were  quite  evidently  men  of  means,  and 
might  have  been  described  as  gentlemen  black 
smiths,  for  they  owned  the  slaves  who  pounded 
the  iron.  Being  men  of  exceptional  business 
shrewdness,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  from 
doing  the  buccaneers'  blacksmithing  they  grad- 

95 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ually  became  their  agents  and  bankers,  the  smithy 
in  St.  Philippe  Street  coming  in  time  to  be  a  sort  of 
clearing-house  for  many  questionable  transactions. 
Now  Jean  Lafitte  was  an  extremely  able  man,  com 
bining  a  remarkable  executive  ability  with  a  genius 
for  organization,  and  had  he  lived  a  century  later 
these  traits,  together  with  his  predatory  instincts 
and  his  utter  contempt  for  the  law,  would  un 
doubtedly  have  made  him  the  president  of  a 
trust.  Through  success  in  managing  their  affairs, 
he  gradually  increased  his  usefulness  to  the  buc 
caneers  until  he  obtained  complete  control  over 
them,  and  ruled  them  as  despotically  as  a  tribal 
chieftain.  This  was  when  his  genius  for  organ 
ization  had  succeeded  in  uniting  their  different, 
and  often  rival,  efforts  and  interests  into  a  sort  of 
pirates'  corporation,  composed  of  all  the  bucca 
neers,  privateers,  and  freebooters  doing  business  in 
the  Gulf,  this  combination  of  outlaws,  incredible  as 
it  may  seem,  as  effectually  controlling  the  price 
of  slaves  and  many  other  things  in  the  Mississippi 
valley  as  the  Standard  Oil  Company  controls  the 
price  of  petroleum  to-day. 

The  influence  of  this  new  element  in  the  buc 
caneer  business  soon  made  itself  felt.  At  that 
time  New  Orleans  was  a  sort  of  cross  between  an 
American  frontier  town  and  a  West  Indian  port, 

96 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

its  streets  and  barrooms  being  filled  with  swagger 
ing  adventurers,  gamblers,  and  soldiers  of  fortune 
from  every  corner  of  the  three  Americas,  the  pres 
ence  of  most  of  whom  was  due  to  the  activity  of 
the  sheriffs  in  their  former  homes.  It  was  from 
these  men,  cool,  reckless,  resourceful,  that  Lafitte 
recruited  his  forces.  Leaving  his  brother  Pierre 
in  charge  of  the  New  Orleans  branch  of  the  enter 
prise,  Jean  Lafitte  took  up  his  residence  on  Grande 
Terre,  where,  under  his  directions,  a  fort  was 
built,  around  which  there  soon  sprang  up  a  verita 
ble  city  of  thatched  huts  for  the  shelter  of  the 
buccaneers,  and  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
merchants  who  came  to  supply  their  wants  or  to 
purchase  their  captured  cargoes.  Within  a  year 
upward  of  a  dozen  armed  vessels  rendezvoused 
in  Barataria  Bay,  and  their  crews  addressed  Jean 
Lafitte  as  "bosse."  One  of  the  Baratarians,  a 
buccaneer  of  the  walk-the-plank-and-scuttle-the- 
ship  school  named  Grambo,  who  boldly  called 
himself  a  pirate,  and  jeered  at  Lafitte's  polite 
euphemism  of  privateer,  was  one  day  unwise 
enough  to  dispute  the  new  authority.  Without 
an  instant's  hesitation  Lafitte  drew  a  pistol  and 
shot  him  through  the  heart  in  the  presence  of  the 
whole  band.  After  that  episode  there  was  no 
more  insubordination. 

97 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

By  1813  the  Baratarians,  who  had  long  since 
extended  their  operations  to  include  all  kinds  of 
merchandise,  were  driving  such  a  roaring  trade 
that  the  commerce  and  shipping  of  New  Orleans 
was  seriously  diminished  (for  why  go  to  New 
Orleans  for  their  supplies,  the  sea-captains  and 
the  plantation-owners  argued,  when  they  could 
get  what  they  wanted  at  Barataria  for  a  fraction 
of  the  price),  the  business  of  the  banks  decreased 
alarmingly  under  the  continual  lessening  of  their 
deposits,  while  even  the  National  Government 
began  to  feel  its  loss  of  revenue.  The  waters  of 
Barataria,  on  the  contrary,  were  alive  with  the 
sails  of  incoming  and  outgoing  vessels;  the  wharfs 
which  had  been  constructed  at  Grande  Terre  re 
sounded  to  the  creak  of  winches  and  the  shouts  of 
stevedores  unloading  contraband  cargoes,  and  the 
long,  low  warehouses  were  filled  with  merchandise 
and  the  log  stockades  with  slaves  waiting  to  be 
sold  and  transported  to  the  up-country  planta 
tions.  So  defiant  of  the  law  did  Lafitte  become 
that  the  streets  of  New  Orleans  were  placarded 
with  handbills  announcing  the  auction  sales  at 
Barataria  of  captured  cargoes,  and  to  them  flocked 
bargain-hunters  from  all  that  part  of  the  South. 
An  idea  of  the  business  done  by  the  buccaneers  at 
this  time  may  be  gained  from  an  official  statement 

98 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

that  four  hundred  slaves  were  sold  by  auction  in 
the  Grande  Terre  market  in  a  single  day. 

Of  course  the  authorities  took  action  in  the 
matter,  but  their  efforts  to  enforce  the  law  proved 
both  dangerous  and  ineffective.  In  October,  1811, 
a  customs-inspector  succeeded  in  surprising  a  band 
of  Baratarians  and  seizing  some  merchandise  they 
had  with  them,  but  before  he  could  convey  the 
prisoners  and  the  captured  contraband  to  New 
Orleans  Lafitte  and  a  party  of  his  men  overtook 
him,  rescued  the  prisoners,  recovered  the  property, 
and  in  the  fight  which  ensued  wounded  several  of 
the  posse.  Some  months  later  Lafitte  killed  an 
inspector  named  Stout,  who  attempted  to  inter 
fere  with  him,  and  wounded  two  of  his  deputies. 
Then  Governor  Claiborne  issued  a  proclamation 
offering  a  reward  for  the  capture  of  Lafitte  dead 
or  alive,  at  the  same  time  appealing  to  the  legis 
lature  for  permission  to  raise  an  armed  force  to 
break  up  the  buccaneering  business  for  good  and 
all.  The  cautious  legislators  declined  to  take  any 
action,  however,  because  they  were  unwilling  to 
interfere  with  an  enterprise  that,  however  illegal 
it  might  be,  was  unquestionably  developing  the 
resources  of  lower  Louisiana,  and  incidentally  add 
ing  immensely  to  the  fortunes  of  their  constitu 
ents.  As  for  the  Baratarians,  they  paid  as  scant 

99 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

attention  to  the  governor's  proclamation  as  though 
it  had  never  been  written.  Surrounded  by  groups 
of  admiring  friends,  Lafitte  and  his  lieutenants 
continued  to  swagger  through  the  streets  of  New 
Orleans;  his  men  openly  boasted  of  their  exploits 
in  every  barroom  of  the  city,  and  in  places  of 
public  resort  announcements  of  auctions  at  Bara- 
taria  continued  to  be  displayed. 

Then  Governor  Claiborne  played  his  last  card, 
and  secured  indictments  of  the  Lafittes  on  the 
charge  of  piracy.  Pierre  Lafitte  was  arrested  in 
his  blacksmith-shop  and  confined  without  bail 
in  the  calaboose.  Jean  Lafitte  promptly  trumped 
the  governor's  card  by  retaining  the  services  of 
Edward  Livingston  and  John  R.  Grymes,  the  two 
most  distinguished  members  of  the  Louisiana  bar, 
at  the  enormous  fee  of  twenty  thousand  dollars 
apiece.  Grymes  was  then  the  district  attorney, 
but  he  resigned  his  office  for  the  fee.  When  his 
successor  accused  him  in  open  court  of  having 
bartered  his  honor  for  pirate  gold  Grymes  chal 
lenged  him  to  a  duel,  and  crippled  him  for  life 
with  a  pistol  bullet  through  the  hip.  When  the 
two  eminent  lawyers  had  cleared  their  poor,  inno 
cent,  persecuted  clients  of  the  unfounded  and  out 
rageous  charges  brought  against  them,  and  had 
taught  them  certain  legal  tricks  whereby  they 

100 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

could  continue  doing  business  at  the  old  stand 
and  still  keep  on  the  right  side  of  the  bars,  Pierre 
Lafitte  sent  them  an  invitation  to  visit  Barataria 
and  collect  their  fees  in  person.  Livingston,  a 
cautious  gentleman  who  had  no  desire  to  risk  him 
self  among  the  pirates  whose  virtues  he  had  just 
extolled  so  highly  to  a  jury,  declined  the  invitation 
with  thanks,  offering  his  colleague  a  commission  of 
ten  per  cent  to  collect  his  fee  for  him.  Grymes, 
who  was  a  hard-drinking,  high-living  Virginian, 
and  afraid  of  nothing  on  two  feet  or  four,  accepted 
the  invitation  with  alacrity,  and  until  the  end  of 
his  life  was  wont  to  convulse  his  friends  with  lurid 
descriptions  of  the  magnificent  entertainment 
which  Lafitte  provided  for  him.  After  a  carouse 
which  lasted  for  a  week,  and  which,  from  Grymes's 
accounts,  was  a  combination  of  the  feasts  of  Lu- 
cullus  with  the  orgies  of  Nero,  Lafitte  sent  his  legal 
adviser  back  to  New  Orleans  in  a  sailing  vessel, 
together  with  several  huge  chests  containing  his 
fee  in  Spanish  gold  pieces.  It  is  an  interesting 
commentary  on  the  customs  which  prevailed  in 
those  days  that  by  the  time  Grymes  reached  New 
Orleans,  after  having  visited  the  various  planta 
tions  along  the  lower  Mississippi  and  tried  his 
luck  at  their  card-tables,  not  a  dollar  of  his  fee 
remained. 


101 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Now,  it  should  be  understood  that  the  feeble 
ness  which  characterized  all  the  attempts  of  the 
Federal  Government  to  break  the  power  of  the 
buccaneers  was  not  due  to  any  reluctance  to 
prosecute  them,  but  to  the  fact  that  it  already 
had  its  attention  taken  up  with  far  more  pressing 
matters,  for  we  were  then  in  the  midst  of  our 
second  war  with  Great  Britain.  The  long  series 
of  injuries  which  England  had  inflicted  on  the 
United  States,  such  as  the  plundering  and  con 
fiscation  of  our  ships,  the  impressment  into  the 
British  Navy  of  our  seamen,  and  the  interruption 
of  our  commerce  with  other  nations,  had  culmi 
nated  on  June  18,  1812,  by  Congress  declaring  war. 
So  unexpected  was  this  action  that  it  found  the 
country  totally  unprepared.  Our  military  estab 
lishment  was  barely  large  enough  to  provide  gar 
risons  for  the  most  exposed  points  on  our  far-flung 
borders;  the  numerous  ports  on  our  seaboard 
were  left  unprotected  and  unfortified;  and  our 
navy  consisted  of  but  a  handful  of  war-ships. 
The  history  of  the  first  two  years  of  the  struggle, 
which  was  marked  by  brilliant  American  victories 
at  sea,  but  by  a  disastrous  attempt  to  invade 
Canada,  has  no  place  in  this  narrative.  Early  in 
the  summer  of  1814,  however,  the  British  Gov 
ernment,  exasperated  by  its  failure  to  inflict  any 

102 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

vital  damage  in  the  northern  States,  determined 
to  bring  the  war  to  a  quick  conclusion  by  the  in 
vasion  and  conquest  of  Louisiana.  The  prepara 
tions  made  for  this  expedition  were  in  themselves 
startling.  Indeed,  few  Americans  have  even  a 
faint  conception  of  the  strength  of  the  blow  which 
England  prepared  to  deal  us,  for  with  Napoleon's 
abdication  and  exile  to  Elba,  and  the  ending 
of  the  war  with  France,  she  was  enabled  to  bring 
her  whole  military  and  naval  power  against  us. 
The  British  armada  consisted  of  fifty  war-ships, 
mounting  more  than  a  thousand  guns.  It  was 
commanded  by  Vice-Admiral  Sir  Alexander  Coch- 
rane,  under  whom  was  Sir  Thomas  Hardy,  the 
friend  of  Nelson,  Rear-Admiral  Malcolm,  and 
Rear-Admiral  Codrington,  and  was  manned  by 
the  same  sailors  who  had  fought  so  valorously  at 
the  Nile  and  at  Trafalgar.  This  great  fleet  acted 
as  convoy  for  an  almost  equal  number  of  trans 
ports,  having  on  board  eight  thousand  soldiers, 
which  were  the  very  flower  of  the  British  Army, 
nearly  all  of  them  being  veterans  of  the  Napoleonic 
campaigns.  Such  importance  did  the  British  Gov 
ernment  attach  to  the  success  of  this  expedition 
that  it  seriously  considered  giving  the  command 
of  it  to  no  less  a  personage  than  the  Duke  of  Well 
ington.  So  certain  were  the  British  that  the  ven- 

103 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ture  would  be  successful  that  they  brought  with 
them  a  complete  set  of  civil  officials  to  conduct 
the  government  of  this  new  country  which  was 
about  to  be  annexed  to  his  Majesty's  dominions, 
judges,  customs-inspectors,  revenue-collectors, 
court-criers,  printers,  and  clerks,  together  with 
printing-presses  and  office  paraphernalia,  being 
embarked  on  board  the  transports.  A  large  num 
ber  of  ladies,  wives  and  relatives  of  the  officers, 
also  accompanied  the  expedition,  to  take  part  in 
the  festivities  which  were  planned  to  celebrate  the 
capture  of  New  Orleans.  And,  as  though  to  ca'p 
this  exhibition  of  audacity,  a  number  of  ships  were 
chartered  by  British  speculators  to  bring  home  the 
booty,  the  value  of  which  was  estimated  before 
hand  at  fourteen  millions  of  dollars.  Whether  the 
British  Government  expected  to  be  able  to  per 
manently  hold  Louisiana  is  extremely  doubtful, 
for  it  must  have  been  fully  aware  that  the  Western 
States  were  capable  of  pouring  down  a  hundred 
thousand  men,  if  necessary,  to  repel  an  invasion. 
It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  they  counted  only 
on  a  temporary  occupation,  which  they  expected 
to  prolong  sufficiently,  however,  to  give  them  time 
to  pillage  and  lay  waste  the  country,  a  course 
which  they  felt  confident  would  quickly  bring  the 
govenment  at  Washington  to  terms. 

104 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

This  formidable  armada  set  sail  from  England 
early  in  the  summer  of  1814  and,  reaching  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  established  its  base  of  operations, 
regardless  of  all  the  laws  of  neutrality,  at  the 
Spanish  port  of  Pensacola.  One  morning  in  the 
following  September  a  British  brig  hove  to  off 
Grande  Terre,  and  called  attention  to  her  presence 
by  firing  a  cannon.  Lafitte,  darting  through  the 
pass  in  his  four-oared  barge  to  reconnoitre,  met 
the  ship's  gig  with  three  scarlet-coated  officers  in 
the  stern,  who  introduced  themselves  as  bearers 
of  important  despatches  for  Mr.  Lafitte.  The 
pirate  chief,  introducing  himself  in  turn,  invited 
his  unexpected  guests  ashore,  and  led  the  way 
to  his  quarters  with  that  extraordinary  charm 
of  manner  for  which  he  was  noted  even  among 
the  punctilious  Creoles  of  New  Orleans.  After  a 
dinner  of  Southern  delicacies,  which  elicited  ex 
clamations  even  from  the  blase  British  officers, 
Lafitte  opened  the  despatches.  They  were  ad 
dressed  to  Jean  Lafitte,  Esquire,  commandant  at 
Barataria,  from  the  commander-in-chief  of  the 
British  forces  at  Pensacola,  and  bluntly  offered 
him  thirty  thousand  dollars,  payable  in  Pensacola 
or  New  Orleans,  a  commission  as  captain  in  the 
British  Navy,  and  the  enlistment  of  his  men  in 
the  naval  or  military  forces  of  Great  Britain  if 

105 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

he  would  assist  the  British  in  their  impending  in 
vasion  of  Louisiana.  Though  it  was  a  generous 
offer,  no  one  knew  better  than  the  British  com 
mander  that  Lafitte's  co-operation  was  well  worth 
the  price,  for,  familiar  with  the  network  of 
streams  and  navigable  swamps  lying  between 
Barataria  Bay  and  New  Orleans,  he  was  capable 
of  guiding  a  British  expedition  through  these  se 
cret  waterways  to  the  very  gates  of  the  city  be 
fore  the  Americans  would  have  a  hint  of  its  ap 
proach.  It  is  not  too  much  to  assert  that  at  this 
juncture  the  future  of  New  Orleans,  and  indeed 
of  the  whole  Mississippi  Valley,  hung  upon  the 
decision  of  Jean  Lafitte,  a  pirate  and  a  fugitive 
from  justice  with  a  price  upon  his  head. 

Whether  Lafitte  seriously  considered  accepting 
the  offer  there  is,  of  course,  no  way  of  knowing. 
That  it  must  have  sorely  tempted  him  it  seems 
but  reasonable  to  suppose,  for  he  was  not  an 
American,  either  by  birth  or  naturalization,  and 
the  prospect  of  exchanging  his  hazardous  outlaw's 
life,  with  a  vision  of  the  gallows  ever  looming  be 
fore  him  for  a  captain's  commission  in  the  royal 
navy,  with  all  that  that  implied,  could  hardly 
have  failed  to  appeal  to  him  strongly.  That  he 
promptly  decided  to  reject  the  offer  speaks  vol 
umes  for  the  man's  strength  of  character  and  for 

106 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

his  faith  in  American  institutions.  Appreciating 
that  at  such  a  crisis  every  hour  gained  was  of 
value  to  the  Americans,  he  asked  time  to  consider 
the  proposal,  requesting  the  British  officers  to 
await  him  while  he  consulted  an  old  friend  and 
associate  whose  vessel,  he  said,  was  then  lying  in 
the  bay.  Scarcely  was  he  out  of  sight,  however, 
before  a  band  of  buccaneers,  acting,  of  course, 
under  his  orders,  seized  the  officers  and  hustled 
them  into  the  interior  of  the  island,  where  they 
were  politely  but  forcibly  detained.  Here  they 
were  found  some  days  later  by  Lafitte,  who  pre 
tended  to  be  highly  indignant  at  such  unwarrant 
able  treatment  of  his  guests.  Releasing  them  with 
profuse  apologies,  he  saw  them  safely  aboard  their 
brig,  and  assured  them  that  he  would  shortly  com 
municate  his  decision  to  the  British  commander. 
But  that  officer's  letter  was  already  in  the  hands 
of  a  friend  of  Lafitte's  in  New  Orleans,  who  was 
a  member  of  the  legislature,  and  accompanying 
it  was  a  communication  from  the  pirate  chief 
himself,  couched  in  those  altruistic  and  patriotic 
phrases  for  which  the  rascal  was  famous.  In  it  he 
asserted  that,  though  he  admitted  being  guilty 
of  having  evaded  the  payment  of  certain  customs 
duties,  he  had  never  lost  his  loyalty  and  affection 
for  the  United  States,  and  that,  notwithstanding 

107 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

the  fact  that  there  was  a  price  on  his  head,  he 
would  never  miss  an  opportunity  of  serving  his 
adopted  country.  A  few  days  later  Lafitte  for 
warded  through  the  same  channels  much  valu 
able  information  which  his  agents  had  gathered 
as  to  the  strength,  resources,  and  plans  of  the 
British  expedition,  enclosing  with  it  a  letter 
addressed  to  Governor  Claiborne  in  which  he 
offered  the  services  of  himself  and  his  men  in 
defence  of  the  State  and  city  on  condition  that 
they  were  granted  a  pardon  for  past  offences. 

Receiving  no  reply  to  this  communication, 
Lafitte  sailed  up  the  river  to  New  Orleans  in  his 
lugger  and  made  his  way  to  the  residence  of  the 
governor.  Governor  Claiborne  was  seated  at  his 
desk,  immersed  in  the  business  of  his  office,  when 
the  door  was  softly  opened,  and  Lafitte,  stepping 
inside,  closed  it  behind  him.  Clad  in  the  full- 
skirted,  bottle-green  coat,  the  skin-tight  breeches 
of  white  leather,  and  the  polished  Hessian  boots 
which  he  affected,  he  presented  a  most  graceful 
and  gallant  figure.  As  he  entered  he  drew  two 
pistols  from  his  pockets,  cocked  them,  and  covered 
the  startled  governor,  after  which  ominous  pre 
liminaries  he  bowed  with  the  grace  for  which  he 
was  noted. 

"Sir,"  he  remarked  pleasantly,  "you  may  pos- 
108 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

sibly  have  heard  of  me.     My  name  is  Jean  La- 
fitte." 

"What  the  devil  do  you  mean,  sir,"  exploded 
the  governor,  "by  showing  yourself  here?  Don't 
you  know  that  I  shall  call  the  sentry  and  have 
you  arrested?" 

"Pardon  me,  your  Excellency,"  interrupted 
Lafitte,  moving  his  weapons  significantly,  "but 
you  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  If  you  move 
your  hand  any  nearer  that  bell  I  shall  be  com 
pelled  to  shoot  you  through  the  shoulder,  a 
necessity,  believe  me,  which  I  should  deeply 
regret.  I  have  called  on  you  because  I  have 
something  important  to  say  to  you,  and  I  intend 
that  you  shall  hear  it.  To  begin  with,  you  have 
seen  fit  to  put  a  price  upon  my  head?" 

"Upon  the  head  of  a  pirate,  yes,"  thundered 
the  governor,  now  almost  apoplectic  with  rage. 

"In  spite  of  that  fact,"  continued  Lafitte,  "I 
have  rejected  a  most  flattering  offer  from  the 
British  government,  and  have  come  here,  at  some 
small  peril  to  myself,  to  renew  in  person  the  offer 
of  my  services  in  repelling  the  coming  invasion. 
I  have  at  my  command  a  body  of  brave,  well- 
armed,  and  highly  disciplined  men  who  have 
been  trained  to  fight.  Does  the  State  care  to 
accept  their  services  or  does  it  not?" 

109 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

The  governor,  folding  his  arms,  looked  long  at 
Lafitte  before  he  answered.  Then  he  held  out 
his  hand.  "It  is  a  generous  offer  that  you  make, 
sir.  I  accept  it  with  pleasure." 

"At  daybreak  to-morrow,  then,"  said  Lafitte, 
replacing  his  pistols,  "my  men  will  be  awaiting 
your  Excellency's  orders  across  the  river."  Then, 
with  another  sweeping  bow,  he  left  the  room  as 
silently  as  he  had  entered  it. 

Governor  Claiborne  immediately  communicated 
Lafitte's  offer  to  General  Andrew  Jackson,  then 
at  Mobile,  who  had  been  designated  by  the  War 
Department  to  conduct  the  defence  of  Louisiana. 
Jackson,  who  had  already  issued  a  proclamation 
denouncing  the  British  for  their  overtures  to  "rob 
bers,  pirates,  and  hellish  bandits,"  as  he  termed 
the  Baratarians,  promptly  replied  that  the  only 
thing  he  would  have  to  do  with  Lafitte  was  to 
hang  him.  Nevertheless,  when  the  general  ar 
rived  in  New  Orleans  a  few  days  later,  Lafitte 
called  at  his  headquarters  and  requested  an  inter 
view.  By  this  time  Jackson  was  conscious  of  the 
feebleness  of  the  resources  at  his  disposal  for  the 
defence  of  the  city  and  of  the  strength  of  the  arma 
ment  directed  against  it,  which  accounts,  perhaps, 
for  his  consenting  to  receive  the  "hellish  bandit." 
Lafitte,  looking  the  grim  old  soldier  squarely  in 

no 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

the  eye,  repeated  his  offer,  and  so  impressed  was 
Jackson  with  the  pirate's  cool  and  fearless  bearing 
that  he  accepted  his  services. 

On  the  loth  of  December,  1814,  ten  days  after 
Jackson's  arrival  in  New  Orleans,  the  British 
armada  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi. 
Small  wonder  that  the  news  almost  created  a 
panic  in  the  city,  for  the  very  names  of  the  ships 
and  regiments  composing  the  expedition  had  be 
come  famous  through  their  exploits  in  the  Na 
poleonic  wars.  It  was  a  nondescript  and  motley 
force  which  Jackson  had  hastily  gathered  to  repel 
this  imposing  army  of  invasion.  Every  man 
capable  of  bearing  arms  in  New  Orleans  and  its 
vicinity — planters,  merchants,  bankers,  lawyers — 
had  volunteered  for  service.  To  the  local  com 
pany  of  colored  freedmen  was  added  another  one 
composed  of  colored  refugees  from  Santo  Domingo, 
men  who  had  sided  with  the  whites  in  the  revo 
lution  there  and  had  had  to  leave  the  island  in 
consequence.  Even  the  prisoners  in  the  cala 
boose  had  been  released  and  provided  with  arms. 
From  the  parishes  round  about  came  Creole 
volunteers  by  the  hundred,  clad  in  all  manner 
of  clothing  and  bearing  all  kinds  of  weapons. 
From  Mississippi  came  a  troop  of  cavalry  under 
Hinds,  which  was  followed  a  few  hours  later  by 

in 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Coffee's  famous  brigade  of  "Dirty  Shirts,"  com 
posed  of  frontiersmen  from  the  forests  of  Ken 
tucky  and  Tennessee,  who  after  a  journey  of  eight 
hundred  miles  through  the  wilderness  answered 
Jackson's  message  to  hurry  by  covering  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  between  Baton  Rouge 
and  New  Orleans  in  two  days.  Added  to  these 
were  a  thousand  raw  militiamen,  who  had  been 
brought  down  on  barges  and  flat-boats  from  the 
towns  along  the  upper  river,  four  companies  of 
regulars,  Beale's  brigade  of  riflemen,  a  hundred 
Choctaw  Indians  in  war-paint  and  feathers,  and 
last,  but  in  many  respects  the  most  efficient  of 
all,  the  corps  of  buccaneers  from  Barataria,  under 
the  command  of  the  Lafittes.  The  men,  dragging 
with  them  cannon  taken  from  their  vessels,  were 
divided  into  two  companies,  one  under  Captain 
Beluche  (who  rose  in  after  years  to  be  admiral- 
in-chief  of  Venezuela)  and  the  other  under  a 
veteran  privateersman  named  Dominique  You. 
These  men  were  fighters  by  profession,  hardy, 
seasoned,  and  cool-headed,  and  as  they  swung 
through  the  streets  of  New  Orleans  to  take  up  the 
position  which  Jackson  had  assigned  them,  even 
that  taciturn  old  soldier  gave  a  grunt  of  appro 
bation. 

Jackson  had  chosen  as  his  line  of  defence  an 
112 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

artificial  waterway  known  as  the  Rodriguez  Ca 
nal,  which  lay  some  five  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
city,  and  along  its  embankments,  which  in  them 
selves  formed  pretty  good  fortifications,  he  dis 
tributed  his  men.  On  the  night  of  December  23 
a  force  of  two  thousand  British  succeeded,  by 
means  of  boats,  in  making  their  way,  through 
the  chain  of  bayous  which  surrounds  the  city,  to 
within  a  mile  or  two  of  Jackson's  lines,  where 
they  camped  for  the  night.  Being  informed  of 
their  approach  (for  the  British,  remember,  had 
the  whole  countryside  against  them),  Jackson, 
knowing  the  demoralizing  effect  of  a  night  attack, 
directed  Coffee  and  his  Tennesseans  to  throw 
themselves  upon  the  British  right,  while  at  the 
same  moment  Beale's  Kentuckians  attacked  on 
the  left.  Trained  in  all  the  wiles  of  Indian  war 
fare,  the  frontiersmen  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
outskirts  of  the  British  camp  before  they  were 
challenged  by  the  sentries.  Their  reply  was  a 
volley  at  close  quarters  and  a  charge  with  the 
tomahawk — for  they  had  no  bayonets — which 
drove  the  British  force  back  in  something  closely 
akin  to  a  rout. 

Meanwhile  Jackson  had  set  his  other  troops  at 
work  strengthening  their  line  of  fortifications,  so 
that  when  the  sun  rose  on  the  morning  of  the  day 

113 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

before  Christmas  it  found  them  strongly  intrenched 
behind  earthworks,  helped  out  with  timber,  sand 
bags,  fence-rails,  and  cotton-bales — whence  arose 
the  myth  that  the  Americans  fought  behind  bales 
of  cotton.  The  British  troops  were  far  from  be 
ing  in  Christmas  spirits,  for  the  truth  had  already 
begun  to  dawn  upon  them  that  men  can  fight  as 
well  in  buckskin  shirts  as  in  scarlet  tunics,  and 
that  these  raw-boned  wilderness  hunters,  with 
their  powder-horns  and  abnormally  long  rifles, 
were  likely  to  prove  more  formidable  enemies  than 
the  imposing  grenadiers  of  Napoleon's  Old  Guard, 
whom  they  had  been  fighting  in  Spain  and  France. 
On  that  same  day  before  Christmas,  strangely 
enough,  a  treaty  of  peace  was  being  signed  by  the 
envoys  of  the  two  nations  in  a  little  Belgian  town, 
four  thousand  miles  away. 

On  Christmas  Day,  however,  the  wonted  con 
fidence  of  the  British  soldiery  was  somewhat  re 
stored  by  the  arrival  of  Sir  Edward  Pakenham, 
the  new  commander-in-chief,  for  even  in  that  hard- 
fighting  day  there  were  few  European  soldiers  who 
bore  more  brilliant  reputations.  A  brother-in- 
law  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  he  had  fought  side 
by  side  with  him  through  the  Peninsular  War; 
he  had  headed  the  storming  party  at  Badajoz; 
and  at  Salamanca  had  led  the  charge  which  won 

114 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

the  day  for  England  and  a  knighthood  for  him 
self.  An  earldom  and  the  governorship  of  Loui 
siana,  it  was  said,  had  been  promised  him  as  his 
reward  for  the  American  expedition. 

Pakenham's  practised  eye  quickly  appreciated 
the  strength  of  the  American  position,  which, 
after  a  council  of  war,  it  was  decided  to  carry 
by  storm.  During  the  night  of  the  26th  the 
storming  columns,  eight  thousand  strong,  took  up 
their  positions  within  half  a  mile  of  the  American 
lines.  As  the  sun  rose  next  morning  over  fields 
sparkling  with  frost,  the  bugles  sounded  the  ad 
vance,  and  the  British  army,  ablaze  with  color, 
and  in  as  perfect  alignement  as  though  on  parade, 
moved  forward  to  the  attack.  As  they  came 
within  range  of  the  American  guns,  a  group 
of  plantation  buildings  which  masked  Jackson's 
front  were  blown  up,  and  the  British  were  startled 
to  find  themselves  confronted  by  a  row  of  ship's 
cannon,  manned  as  guns  are  seldom  manned  on 
land.  Around  each  gun  was  clustered  a  crew  of 
lean,  fierce-faced,  red-shirted  ruffians,  caked  with 
sweat  and  mud:  they  were  Lafitte's  buccaneers, 
who  had  responded  to  Jackson's  orders  by  run 
ning  in  all  the  way  from  their  station  on  the  Bayou 
St.  John  that  morning.  Not  until  he  could  make 
out  the  brass  buttons  on  the  tunics  of  the  advan- 

"5 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

cing  British  did  Lafitte  give  the  command  to  fire. 
Then  the  great  guns  of  the  pirate-patriots  flashed 
and  thundered.  Before  that  deadly  fire  the  scarlet 
columns  crumbled  as  plaster  crumbles  beneath  a 
hammer,  the  men  dropping,  first  by  twos  and 
threes,  then  by  dozens  and  scores.  In  five  min 
utes  the  attacking  columns,  composed  of  regi 
ments  which  were  the  boast  of  the  British  army, 
had  been  compelled  to  sullenly  retreat. 

The  British  commander,  appreciating  that  the 
repulse  of  his  forces  was  largely  due  to  the  fire  of 
the  Baratarian  artillery,  gave  orders  that  guns  be 
brought  from  the  fleet  and  mounted  in  a  position 
where  they  could  silence  the  fire  of  the  buccaneers. 
Three  days  were  consumed  in  the  herculean  task 
of  moving  the  heavy  pieces  of  ordnance  into  posi 
tion,  but  when  the  sun  rose  on  New  Year's  morn 
ing  it  showed  a  skilfully  constructed  line  of  in- 
trenchments,  running  parallel  to  the  American 
front  and  armed  with  thirty  heavy  guns.  While 
the  British  were  thus  occupied,  the  Americans  had 
not  been  idle,  for  Jackson  had  likewise  busied 
himself  in  constructing  additional  batteries,  while 
Commodore  Patterson,  the  American  naval  com 
mander,  had  gone  through  the  sailors'  boarding- 
houses  of  New  Orleans  with  a  fine-tooth  comb,  im 
pressing  every  nautical-looking  character  on  which 

116 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

he  could  lay  his  hands,  regardless  of  nation 
ality,  color,  or  excuses,  to  serve  the  guns.  With 
their  storming  columns  sheltered  behind  the 
breastworks,  awaiting  the  moment  when  they 
would  burst  through  the  breach  which  they  con 
fidently  expected  would  shortly  be  made  in  the 
American  defences,  the  British  batteries  opened 
fire  with  a  crash  which  seemed  to  split  the  heavens. 
Throughout  the  artillery  duel  which  ensued  splen 
did  service  was  rendered  by  the  men  under  Lafitte, 
who  trained  their  guns  as  carefully  and  served 
them  as  coolly  as  though  they  were  back  again 
on  the  decks  of  their  privateers.  The  storming 
parties,  which  were  waiting  for  a  breach  to  be 
made,  waited  in  vain,  for  within  an  hour  and 
thirty  minutes  after  the  action  opened  the  Brit 
ish  batteries  were  silenced,  their  guns  dismounted, 
and  their  parapets  levelled  with  the  plain.  The 
veterans  of  Wellington  and  Nelson  had  been  out 
fought  from  first  to  last  by  a  band  of  buccaneers, 
reinforced  by  a  few-score  American  bluejackets 
and  a  handful  of  nondescript  seamen. 

Pakenham  had  one  more  plan  for  the  capture 
of  the  city.  This  was  a  general  assault  by  his 
entire  army  on  the  American  lines.  His  plan  of 
attack  was  simple,  and  would  very  probably  have 
proved  successful  against  troops  less  accustomed 

117 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

to  frontier  warfare  than  the  Americans.  Colonel 
Thornton,  with  fourteen  hundred  men,  was  directed 
to  cross  the  river  during  the  night  of  January  7, 
and,  creeping  up  to  the  American  lines  under  cover 
of  the  darkness,  to  carry  them  by  assault.  His 
attack  was  to  be  the  signal  for  a  column  under 
General  Gibbs  to  storm  Jackson's  right,  and  for 
another,  under  General  Keane,  to  throw  itself 
against  the  American  left,  General  Lambert,  who 
had  just  arrived  with  two  fresh  regiments,  being 
held  in  reserve.  So  carefully  had  the  British 
commanders  perfected  their  plans  that  the  battle 
was  already  won — in  theory. 

No  one  knew  better  than  Jackson  that  this  was 
to  be  the  deciding  round  of  the  contest,  and  he 
accordingly  made  his  preparations  to  win  it  with 
a  solar-plexus  blow.  He  also  had  received  a  rein 
forcement,  for  the  long-expected  militia  from  Ken 
tucky,  two  thousand  two  hundred  strong,  had  just 
arrived,  after  a  forced  march  of  fifteen  hundred 
miles,  though  in  a  half-naked  and  starving  con 
dition.  Our  history  contains  nothing  finer,  to  my 
way  of  thinking,  than  the  story  of  how  these  moun 
taineers  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  foot-sore,  ragged,  and 
hungry,  came  pouring  down  from  the  north  to 
repel  the  threatened  invasion.  The  Americans, 
who  numbered,  all  told,  barely  four  thousand  men, 

118 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

were  scattered  along  a  front  of  nearly  three  miles, 
one  end  of  the  line  extending  so  far  into  a  swamp 
that  the  soldiers  stood  in  water  to  their  waists 
during  the  day,  and  at  night  slept  on  floating  logs 
made  fast  to  trees. 

Long  before  daybreak  on  the  morning  of  the 
8th  of  January  the  divisions  of  Gibbs  and  Keane 
were  in  position,  and  waiting  impatiently  for  the 
outburst  of  musketry  which  would  be  the  signal 
that  Thornton  had  begun  his  attack.  Thornton 
had  troubles  of  his  own,  however,  for  the  swift 
current  of  the  Mississippi,  as  though  wishing  to 
do  its  share  in  the  nation's  defence,  had  carried 
his  boats  a  mile  and  a  half  down-stream,  so  that 
it  was  daylight  before  he  was  able  to  effect  a 
landing,  when  a  surprise  was,  of  course,  out  of 
the  question.  But  Pakenham,  naturally  obstinate 
and  now  made  wholly  reckless  by  the  miscarriage 
of  his  plans,  refused  to  recall  his  orders;  so,  as  the 
gray  mists  of  the  early  morning  slowly  lifted,  his 
columns  were  seen  advancing  across  the  fields. 

"Steady  now,  boys!  Steady!"  called  Jack 
son,  as  he  rode  up  and  down  behind  his  lines. 
"Don't  waste  your  ammunition,  for  we've  none 
to  spare.  Pick  your  man,  wait  until  he  gets 
within  range,  and  then  let  him  have  it!  Let's  get 
this  business  over  with  to-day!"  His  orders  were 

119 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

obeyed  to  the  letter,  for  not  a  shot  was  fired  un 
til  the  scarlet  columns  were  within  certain  range. 
Then  the  order  "Commence  firing"  was  repeated 
down  the  line.  Neither  hurriedly,  nor  excitedly, 
nor  confusedly  was  it  obeyed,  but  with  the  ut 
most  calmness  and  deliberation,  the  frontiersmen, 
trained  to  use  the  rifle  from  boyhood,  choosing 
their  targets,  and  calculating  their  ranges  as  un 
concernedly  as  though  they  were  hunting  in  their 
native  forests.  Still  the  British  columns  pressed 
indomitably  on,  and  still  the  lean  and  lantern- 
jawed  Jackson  rode  up  and  down  his  lines,  cheer 
ing,  cautioning,  exhorting,  directing.  Suddenly  he 
reined  up  his  horse  at  the  Baratarian  battery 
commanded  by  Dominique  You. 

"What's  this?  What's  this?"  he  exclaimed. 
"You  have  stopped  firing?  What  the  devil  does 
this  mean,  sir?" 

"Of  course  we've  stopped  firing,  general,"  said 
the  buccaneer,  touching  his  forelock  man-o'-war 
fashion.  "The  powder's  good  for  nothing.  It 
might  do  to  shoot  blackbirds  with,  but  not  red 


coats." 


Jackson  beckoned  to  one  of  his  aides-de-camp. 

"Tell  the  ordnance  officer  that  I  will  have  him 
shot  in  five  minutes  as  a  traitor  if  Dominique 
complains  again  of  his  powder,"  and  he  galloped 

120 


1 1 

T:  u 

°  * 

<u  Q 


•s  I 

^    .S 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

off.  When  he  passed  that  way  a  few  minutes  later 
the  rattle  of  the  musketry  was  being  punctuated 
at  half-minute  intervals  with  the  crash  of  the 
Baratarian  guns.  "Ha,  friend  Dominique,"  called 
Jackson,  "I'm  glad  to  see  you're  at  work  again." 
"Pretty  good  work,  too,  general,"  responded  the 
buccaneer.  "It  looks  to  me  as  if  the  British  have 
discovered  that  there  has  been  a  change  of  powder 
in  this  battery."  He  was  right.  Before  the  com 
bined  rifle  and  artillery  fire  of  the  Americans  the 
British  columns  were  melting  like  snow  under  a 
spring  rain.  Still  their  officers  led  them  on,  cheer 
ing,  pleading,  threatening,  imploring.  Pakenham's 
arm  was  pierced  by  a  bullet;  at  the  same  instant 
another  killed  his  horse,  but,  mounting  the  pony 
of  his  aide-de-camp,  he  continued  to  encourage 
his  disheartened  and  wavering  men.  Keane  was 
borne  bleeding  from  the  field,  and  a  moment 
later  Gibbs,  mortally  wounded,  was  carried  after 
him.  The  panic  which  was  just  beginning  to  seize 
the  British  soldiery  was  completed  at  this  critical 
instant  by  a  shot  from  one  of  the  Baratarians' 
big  guns  which  burst  squarely  in  the  middle  of 
the  advancing  column,  causing  terrible  destruc 
tion  in  the  solid  ranks.  Pakenham's  horse  fell 
dead,  and  the  general  reeled  into  the  arms  of  an 
officer  who  sprang  forward  to  catch  him.  Terri- 

121 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

bly  wounded,  he  was  carried  to  the  shelter  of  a 
spreading  oak,  beneath  which,  five  minutes  later, 
he  breathed  his  last.  Then  the  ebb-tide  began. 
The  shattered  regiments,  demoralized  by  the 
death  of  their  commander,  and  themselves  fear 
fully  depleted  by  the  American  fire,  broke  and  ran. 
Ten  minutes  later,  save  for  the  crawling,  agonized 
wounded,  not  a  living  foe  was  to  be  seen.  But 
the  field,  which  had  been  green  with  grass  half  an 
hour  before,  was  carpeted  with  scarlet  now,  and 
the  carpet  was  made  of  British  dead.  Of  the  six 
thousand  men  who  took  part  in  the  attack,  it  is 
estimated  that  two  thousand  six  hundred  were 
killed  or  wounded.  Of  the  Ninety-third  Regi 
ment,  which  had  gone  into  action  nine  hundred 
strong,  only  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  men 
answered  to  the  roll-call.  The  Americans  had 
eight  men  killed  and  thirteen  wounded.  The 
battle  had  lasted  exactly  twenty-five  minutes. 
At  eight  o'clock  the  American  bugles  sounded 
"Cease  firing,"  and  Jackson — whom  this  victory 
was  to  make  President  of  the  United  States — 
followed  by  his  stafF,  rode  slowly  down  the  lines, 
stopping  at  each  command  to  make  a  short  ad 
dress.  As  he  passed,  the  regimental  fifes  and 
drums  burst  into  "Hail,  Columbia,"  and  the  rows 
of  weary,  powder-grimed  men,  putting  their  caps 

122 


The  Pirate  Who  Turned  Patriot 

on  the  ends  of  their  long  rifles,  swung  them  in  the 
air  and  cheered  madly  the  victor  of  New  Orleans. 
There  is  little  more  to  tell.  On  March  17  the 
British  expedition,  accompanied  by  the  judges  and 
customs-inspectors  and  revenue-collectors,  and  by 
the  officers'  wives  who  had  come  out  to  take  part 
in  the  festivities  which  were  to  mark  the  conquest, 
set  sail  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  reach 
ing  Europe  just  in  time  to  participate  in  the  Water 
loo  campaign.  In  the  general  orders  issued  by 
Jackson  after  the  battle  the  highest  praise  was 
given  to  the  Lafittes  and  their  followers  from  Bara- 
taria,  while  the  official  despatches  to  Washington 
strongly  urged  that  some  recognition  be  made  of 
the  extraordinary  services  rendered  by  the  erst 
while  pirates.  A  few  weeks  later  the  President 
granted  a  full  pardon  to  the  inhabitants  of  Bara- 
taria,  his  message  concluding:  "Offenders  who 
have  refused  to  become  the  associates  of  the  enemy 
in  war  upon  the  most  seducing  terms  of  invitation, 
and  who  have  aided  to  repel  his  hostile  invasion 
of  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  can  no  longer 
be  considered  as  objects  of  punishment,  but  as 
objects  of  generous  forgiveness."  Taking  advan 
tage  of  this  amnesty,  the  ex-pirates  settled  down 
to  the  peaceable  lives  of  fishermen  and  market- 
gardeners,  and  their  descendants  dwell  upon  the 

123 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

shores  of  Barataria  Bay  to  this  day.  As  to  the 
future  movements  of  the  brothers  Lafitte,  beyond 
the  fact  that  they  established  themselves  for  a 
time  at  Galveston,  whence  they  harassed  Spanish 
commerce  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  nothing  definite 
is  known.  Leaving  New  Orleans  soon  after  the 
battle,  they  sailed  out  of  the  Mississippi,  and  out 
of  this  story. 


124 


THE  MAN  WHO  DARED  TO  CROSS 
THE  RANGES 


THE  MAN  WHO  DARED  TO  CROSS 
THE  RANGES 

ABOUT  the  word  frontiersman  there  is  a 
pretty  air  of  romance.  The  very  mention 
of  it  conjures  up  a  vision  of  lean,  sinewy,  brown- 
faced  men,  in  fur  caps  and  moccasins  and 
fringed  buckskin,  slipping  through  virgin  forests 
or  pushing  across  sun-scorched  prairies — advance- 
guards  of  civilization.  Hardy,  resolute,  taciturn 
figures,  they  have  passed  silently  across  the  pages 
of  our  history  and  we  shall  see  their  like  no  more. 
To  them  we  owe  a  debt  that  we  can  never  repay— 
nor,  indeed,  have  we  even  publicly  acknowledged 
it.  We  followed  by  the  trails  which  they  had 
blazed  for  us;  we  built  our  towns  in  those  rich 
valleys  and  pastured  our  herds  on  those  fertile 
hillsides  which  theirs  were  the  first  white  men's 
eyes  to  see.  The  American  frontiersman  was 
never  a  self-seeker.  His  discoveries  he  left  as  a 
heritage  to  those  who  followed  him.  In  almost 
every  case  he  died  poor  and,  more  often  than  not, 
with  his  boots  on.  David  Livingstone  and  Henry 

127 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

M.  Stanley,  the  two  Englishmen  who  did  more 
than  any  other  men  for  the  opening  up  of  Africa, 
lie  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  thousands  of  their 
countrymen  each  year  stand  reverently  beside 
their  tombs.  To  Cecil  Rhodes,  another  Anglo- 
African  pioneer,  a  great  national  memorial  has 
been  erected  on  the  slopes  of  Table  Mountain. 
Far,  far  greater  parts  in  the  conquest  of  a  wilder 
ness,  the  winning  of  a  continent,  were  played  by 
Daniel  Boone,  William  Bowie,  Kit  Carson,  Davy 
Crockett;  yet  how  many  of?  those  who  to-day 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  the  perils  they  faced,  the  hard 
ships  they  endured,  know  much  more  of  them  than 
as  characters  in  dime  novels,  can  tell  where  they 
are  buried,  can  point  to  any  statues  or  monuments 
which  have  been  erected  to  their  memories? 

There  are  two  million  four  hundred  thousand 
people  in  the  State  of  California,  and  most  of  them 
boast  of  it  as  "God's  own  country."  They  have 
more  State  pride  than  any  people  that  I  know, 
yet  I  would  be  willing  to  wager  almost  anything 
you  please  that  you  can  pick  a  hundred  native 
sons  of  California,  and  put  to  each  of  them  the 
question,  "Who  was  Jedediah  Smith?"  and  not 
one  of  them  would  be  able  to  answer  it  correctly. 
The  public  parks  of  San  Francisco  and  Los 
Angeles  and  San  Diego  and  Sacramento  have  in- 

128 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

numerable  statues  of  one  kind  and  another,  but 
you  will  find  none  of  this  man  with  the  stern  old 
Puritan  name;  they  are  starting  a  hall  of  fame 
in  California,  but  no  one  has  proposed  Jedediah 
Smith  as  deserving  a  place  in  it.  Yet  to  him,  per 
haps  more  than  to  any  other  man,  is  due  the  fact 
that  California  is  American:  he  was  the  greatest 
of  the  pathfinders;  he  was  the  real  founder  of  the 
Overland  Trail;  he  was  the  man  who  led  the  way 
across  the  ranges.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  trail 
he  blazed  and  the  thousands  who  followed  in  his 
footsteps  the  Sierra  Nevadas,  instead  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  might  still  mark  the  line  of  our  frontier. 
The  westward  advance  of  population  which  took 
place  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  far  exceeded  the  limits  of  any  of  the  great 
migrations  of  mankind  upon  the  older  continents. 
The  story  of  the  American  onset  to  the  beckoning 
West  is  one  of  the  wonder-tales  of  history.  Over 
the  natural  waterway  of  the  great  northern  lakes, 
down  the  road  to  Pittsburg,  along  the  trail  which 
skirted  the  Potomac,  and  then  down  the  Ohio, 
over  the  passes  of  the  Cumberland  into  Tennessee, 
round  the  end  of  the  Alleghanies  into  the  Gulf 
States,  up  the  Missouri,  and  so  across  the  Rockies 
to  the  head  waters  of  the  Columbia,  or  south- 
westward  from  St.  Louis  to  the  Spanish  settle- 

129 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ments  of  Santa  Fe,  the  hardy  pioneers  poured  in 
an  ever-increasing  stream,  carrying  with  them 
little  but  axe,  spade,  and  rifle,  some  scanty  house 
hold  effects,  a  small  store  of  provisions,  a  liberal 
supply  of  ammunition,  and  unlimited  faith,  cour 
age,  and  enterprise. 

During  that  brief  period  the  people  of  the  United 
States  extended  their  occupation  over  the  whole 
of  that  vast  region  lying  between  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Rockies — a  territory  larger  than  all  of 
Europe,  without  Russia — annexed  it  from  the 
wilderness,  conquered,  subdued,  improved,  cul 
tivated,  civilized  it,  and  all  without  one  jot  of 
governmental  assistance.  Throughout  these  years, 
as  the  frontiersmen  pressed  into  the  West,  they 
continued  to  fret  and  strain  against  the  Spanish 
boundaries.  The  Spanish  authorities,  and  after 
them  the  Mexican,  soon  became  seriously  alarmed 
at  this  silent  but  resistless  American  advance,  and 
from  the  City  of  Mexico  orders  went  out  to  the 
provincial  governors  that  Americans  venturing 
within  their  jurisdiction  should  be  treated,  when 
ever  an  excuse  offered,  with  the  utmost  severity. 
But,  notwithstanding  the  menace  of  Mexican 
prisons,  of  Indian  tortures,  of  savage  animals,  of 
thirst  and  starvation  in  the  wilderness,  the  pioneers 
pushed  westward  and  ever  westward,  until  at  last 

130 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

their  further  progress  was  abruptly  halted  by  the 
great  range  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  snow-crested, 
and  presumably  impassable,  which  rose  like  a 
titanic  wall  before  them,  barring  their  further 
march. 

It  was  at  about  the  time  of  this  halt  in  our 
westward  progress  that  Captain  Jedediah  Smith 
came  riding  onto  the  scene.  You  must  picture 
him  as  a  gaunt-faced,  lean-flanked,  wiry  man, 
with  nerves  of  iron,  sinews  of  rawhide,  a  skin 
like  oak-tanned  leather,  and  quick  on  his  feet  as 
a  catamount.  He  was  bearded  to  the  ears,  of 
course,  for  razors  formed  no  part  of  the  scanty 
equipment  of  the  frontiersman,  and  above  the 
beard  shone  a  pair  of  very  keen,  bright  eyes,  with 
the  concentrated  wrinkles  about  their  corners  that 
come  of  staring  across  the  prairies  under  a  blazing 
sun.  He  was  sparing  of  his  words,  as  are  most 
men  who  dwell  in  the  great  solitudes,  and,  like 
them,  he  was,  in  an  unorthodox  way,  devout,  his 
stern  and  rugged  features  as  well  as  his  uncom 
promising  scriptural  name  betraying  the  grim 
old  Puritan  stock  from  which  he  sprang.  His  hair 
was  long  and  black,  and  would  have  covered  his 
shoulders  had  it  not  been  tied  at  the  back 
of  the  neck  by  a  leather  thong.  His  dress  was 
that  of  the  Indian  adapted  to  meet  the  require- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ments  of  the  adventuring  white  man :  a  hunting- 
shirt  and  trousers  of  fringed  buckskin,  embroidered 
moccasins  of  elkhide,  and  a  cap  made  from  the 
glossy  skin  of  a  beaver,  with  the  tail  hanging  down 
behind.  On  hot  desert  marches,  and  in  camp,  he 
took  off  the  beaver-skin  cap  and  twisted  about  his 
head  a  bright  bandanna,  which,  when  taken  with 
his  gaunt,  unshaven  face,  made  him  look  uncom 
monly  like  a  pirate.  These  garments  were  by  no 
means  fresh  and  gaudy,  like  those  affected  by  the 
near-frontiersmen  who  take  part  in  the  produc 
tion  of  Wild  West  shows;  instead  they  were  very 
soiled  and  much  worn  and  greasy,  and  gave  evi 
dence  of  having  done  twenty-four  hours*  duty  a 
day  for  many  months  at  a  stretch.  Hanging  on 
his  chest  was  a  capacious  powder-horn,  and  in  his 
belt  was  a  long,  straight  knife,  very  broad  and 
heavy  in  the  blade — a  first  cousin  of  that  deadly 
weapon  to  which  William  Bowie  was  in  after  years 
to  give  his  name;  in  addition  he  carried  a  rifle, 
with  an  altogether  extraordinary  length  of  barrel, 
which  brought  death  to  any  living  thing  within  a 
thousand  yards  on  which  its  foresight  rested.  His 
mount  was  a  plains-bred  pony,  as  wiry  and  unkempt 
and  enduring  as  himself.  Everything  considered, 
Smith  could  have  been  no  gentle-looking  figure, 
and  I  rather  imagine  that,  if  he  were  alive  and  ven- 

132 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

tured  into  a  Western  town  to-day,  he  would  prob 
ably  be  arrested  by  the  local  constable  as  an  unde 
sirable  character.  I  have  now  sketched  for  you, 
in  brief,  bold  outline,  as  good  a  likeness  of  Smith 
as  I  am  able  with  the  somewhat  scanty  materials 
at  hand,  for  he  lived  and  did  his  pioneering  in  the 
days  when  frontiersmen  were  as  common  as  traffic 
policemen  are  now,  added  to  which  the  men  who 
were  familiar  with  his  exploits  were  of  a  sort  more 
ready  with  their  pistols  than  with  their  pens. 

The  dates  of  Smith's  birth  and  death  are  not 
vital  to  this  story,  and  perhaps  it  is  just  as  well 
that  they  are  not,  for  I  can  find  no  record  of  when 
he  came  into  the  world,  and  only  the  Indian  war 
rior  who  wore  his  scalp-lock  at  his  waist  could  have 
told  the  exact  date  on  which  he  went  out  of  it. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that,  just  as  the  nineteenth 
century  was  passing  the  quarter  mark,  Smith  was 
the  head  of  a  firm  of  fur-traders,  Smith,  Jackson 
&  Soublette,  which  had  obtained  from  President 
John  Quincy  Adams  permission  to  hunt  and  trade 
to  their  hearts'  content  in  the  region  lying  beyond 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  It  would  have  been  much 
more  to  the  point  to  have  obtained  the  permission 
of  the  Mexican  governor-general  of  the  Californias, 
or  of  the  great  chief  of  the  Comanches,  for  they 
held  practically  all  of  the  territory  in  question 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

between  them.  Those  were  the  days  whose  like  we 
shall  never  know  again,  when  the  streams  were 
alive  with  beaver,  when  there  were  more  elk  and 
antelope  on  the  prairies  than  there  are  cattle  now, 
and  when  the  noise  made  by  the  moving  buffalo 
herds  sounded  like  the  roll  of  distant  thunder. 
They  were  the  days  when  a  fortune,  as  fortunes 
were  then  reckoned,  awaited  the  man  with  un 
limited  ammunition,  a  sure  eye,  and  a  body  inured 
to  hardships.  What  the  founder  of  the  Astor 
fortune  was  doing  in  the  Puget  Sound  country, 
Smith  and  his  companions  purposed  to  do  in  the 
Rockies;  and,  with  this  end  in  view,  established 
their  base  camp  on  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
Great  Salt  Lake,  not  far  from  where  Ogden  now 
stands.  This  little  band  of  pioneers  formed  the 
westernmost  outpost  of  American  civilization,  for 
between  them 'and  the  nearest  settlement,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  Rivers, 
stretched  thirteen  hundred  miles  of  savage  wilder 
ness.  Livingstone,  on  his  greatest  journey,  did 
not  penetrate  half  as  far  into  unknown  Africa 
as  Smith  did  into  unknown  America,  and  while 
the  English  explorer  was  at  the  head  of  a  large 
and  well-equipped  expedition,  the  American  was 
accompanied  by  a  mere  handful  of  men. 

In  August,  1826,  Smith  and  a  small  party  of  his 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

hunters  found  themselves  in  the  terrible  Painted 
Desert,  that  God-forsaken  expanse  of  sand  and 
lava  where  the  present  States  of  Arizona,  Utah, 
and  Nevada  meet.  Water  there  was  none,  for 
the  streams  had  run  dry,  and  the  horses  and  pack- 
mules  were  dying  of  thirst  and  exhaustion;  the 
game  had  entirely  disappeared;  the  supplies  were 
all  but  finished— and  five  hundred  miles  of  the 
most  inhospitable  country  in  the  world  lay  be 
tween  them  and  their  camp  on  Great  Salt  Lake. 
The  situation  was  perilous,  indeed,  and  a  decision 
had  to  be  made  quickly  if  any  of  them  were  to  get 
out  alive. 

"What  few  supplies  we  have  left  will  be  used 
up  before  we  get  a  quarter  way  back  to  the  camp," 
said  Smith.  "Our  only  chance — and  I  might  as 
well  tell  you  it's  a  mighty  slim  one,  boys — is  in 
pushing  on  to  California." 

"But  California's  a  good  four  hundred  miles 
away,"  expostulated  his  companions,  "and  the 
Sierras  lie  between,  and  no  one  has  ever  crossed 
them." 

"Then  I'll  be  the  first  man  to  do  it,"  said  Smith. 
"Besides,  I've  always  had  a  hankering  to  learn 
what  lies  on  the  other  side  of  those  ranges.  Now's 
my  chance  to  find  out." 

"I  reckon  there  ain't  much  chance  of  our  ever 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

seeing  Salt  Lake  or  California  either/'  grumbled 
one  of  the  hunters,  "and  even  if  we  do  reach  the 
coast  the  Mexicans  '11  clap  us  into  prison." 

"Well,  so  fur's  I'm  concerned,"  said  Smith  de 
cisively,  "I'd  rather  be  alive  and  in  a  Greaser 
prison  than  to  be  dead  in  the  desert.  I'm  going 
to  California  or  die  on  the  way." 

History  chronicles  few  such  marches.  West 
ward  pressed  the  little  troop  of  pioneers,  across 
the  sun-baked  lava  beds  of  southwestern  Utah, 
over  the  arid  deserts  and  the  barren  ranges  of 
southern  Nevada,  and  so  to  the  foot-hills  of  that 
great  Sierran  range  which  rears  itself  ten  thousand 
feet  skyward,  forming  a  barrier  which  had  there 
tofore  separated  the  fertile  lands  of  the  Pacific 
slope  from  the  rest  of  the  continent  more  effectu 
ally  than  an  ocean.  The  lava  beds  gave  way  to 
sand  wastes  dotted  with  clumps  of  sage-brush  and 
cactus,  and  the  cactus  changed  to  stunted  pines, 
and  the  pines  ran  out  in  rocks,  and  the  rocks  be 
came  covered  with  snow,  and  still  Smith  and  his 
hunters  struggled  on,  emaciated,  tattered,  almost 
barefooted,  lamed  by  the  cactus  spines  on  the 
desert,  and  the  stones  on  the  mountain  slopes,  until 
at  last  they  stood  upon  the  very  summit  of  the 
range  and,  like  that  other  band  of  pioneers  in  an 
earlier  age,  looked  down  on  the  promised  land  after 

136 


$ 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness.  No  explorer 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  not  Columbus,  nor 
Pizarro,  nor  Champlain,  nor  De  Soto,  ever  gazed 
upon  a  land  so  fertile  and  so  full  of  beauty.  The 
mysterious,  the  jealously  guarded,  the  storied  land 
of  California  lay  spread  before  them  like  a  map 
in  bas-relief.  Then  the  descent  of  the  western 
slope  began,  the  transition  from  snow-clad  moun 
tain  peaks  to  hillsides  clothed  with  subtropical 
vegetation  amazing  the  Americans  by  its  sudden 
ness.  Imagine  how  like  a  dream  come  true  it 
must  have  been  to  these  men,  whose  lives  had  been 
spent  in  the  less  kindly  climate  and  amid  the 
comparatively  scanty  vegetation  of  the  Middle 
West,  to  suddenly  find  themselves  in  this  fairy 
land  of  fruit  and  flowers ! 

"It  is,  indeed,  a  white  man's  country,"  said 
Smith  prophetically,  as,  leaning  on  his  long  rifle, 
he  gazed  upon  the  wonderful  panorama  which  un 
rolled  itself  before  him.  "Though  it  is  Mexican 
just  now,  sooner  or  later  it  must  and  shall  be  ours." 

Heartened  by  the  sight  of  this  wonderful  new 
country,  and  by  the  knowledge  that  they  must 
be  approaching  some  of  the  Mexican  settlements, 
but  with  bodies  sadly  weakened  from  exposure, 
hunger,  and  exhaustion,  the  Americans  slowly 
made  their  way  down  the  slope,  crossed  those  fer- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

tile  lowlands  which  are  now  covered  with  groves 
of  orange  and  lemon,  and  so,  guided  by  some 
friendly  Indians  whom  they  met,  came  at  last  to 
the  mission  station  of  San  Gabriel,  one  of  that  re 
markable  chain  of  outposts  of  the  church  founded 
by  the  indefatigable  Franciscan,  Father  Junipero 
Serra.  The  little  company  of  worn  and  weary  men 
sighted  the  red-tiled  roof  of  the  mission  just  at 
sunset,  and  though  Smith  and  his  followers  came 
from  stern  New  England  stock  which  prided  it 
self  on  having  no  truck  with  Papists,  I  rather 
imagine  that  as  the  sweet,  clear  mission  bells 
chimed  out  the  angelus  they  lifted  their  hats  and 
stood  with  bowed  heads  in  silent  thanksgiving  for 
their  preservation. 

I  doubt  if  there  was  a  more  astonished  com 
munity  between  the  oceans  than  was  the  monastic 
one  of  San  Gabriel  when  this  band  of  ragged 
strangers  suddenly  appeared  from  nowhere  and 
asked  for  food  and  shelter. 

"You  come  from  the  South — from  Mexico?" 
queried  the  father  superior,  staring,  half-awed,  at 
these  gaunt,  fierce-faced,  bearded  men  who  spoke 
in  a  strange  tongue. 

"No,  padre,"  answered  Smith,  calling  to  his  aid 
the  broken  Spanish  he  had  picked  up  in  his  trading 
expeditions  to  Santa  Fe,  "we  come  from  the  East, 

138 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

from  the  country  beyond  the  great  mountains, 
from  the  United  States.  We  are  Americans,"  he 
added  a  little  proudly. 

"They  say  they  come  from  the  East,"  the 
brown-robed  monks  whispered  to  each  other. 
"It  is  impossible.  No  one  has  ever  come  from 
that  direction.  Have  not  the  Indians  told  us 
many  times  that  there  is  no  food,  no  water  in  that 
direction,  and  that,  moreover,  there  is  no  way  to 
cross  the  mountains  ?  It  is,  indeed,  a  strange  and 
incredible  tale  that  these  men  tell.  But  we  will 
offer  them  our  hospitality  in  the  name  of  the 
blessed  St.  Francis,  for  that  we  withhold  from 
no  man;  but  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  despatch 
a  messenger  to  San  Diego  to  acquaint  the  governor 
of  their  coming,  for  it  may  well  be  that  they  mean 
no  good  to  the  people  of  this  land." 

Had  the  good  monks  been  able  to  look  forward 
a  few-score  years,  perhaps  they  would  not  have 
been  so  ready  to  offer  Smith  and  his  companions 
the  shelter  of  the  mission  roof.  But  how  were 
they  to  know  that  these  ragged  strangers,  begging 
for  food  at  their  mission  door,  were  the  skirmishers 
for  a  mighty  host  which  would  one  day  pour  over 
those  mountain  ranges  to  the  eastward  as  the 
water  pours  over  the  falls  at  Niagara;  that  within 
rifle-shot  of  where  their  mission  stood  a  city  of 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

half  a  million  souls  would  spread  itself  across 
the  hills;  that  down  the  dusty  Camino  Real, 
which  the  founder  of  their  mission  had  trudged 
so  often  in  his  sandals  and  woollen  robe,  would 
whirl  strange  horseless,  panting  vehicles,  putting 
a  mile  a  minute  behind  their  flying  wheels;  that 
twin  lines  of  steel  would  bring  their  southernmost 
station  at  San  Diego  within  twenty  hours,  instead 
of  twenty  days,  of  their  northernmost  outpost  at 
Sonoma;  and  that  over  this  new  land  would  fly, 
not  the  red-white-and-green  standard  of  Mexico, 
but  an  alien  banner  of  stripes  and  stars  ? 

The  four  years  which  intervened  between  the 
collapse  of  Spanish  rule  in  Mexico  and  the  arrival 
of  Jedediah  Smith  at  San  Gabriel  were  marked  by 
political  chaos  in  the  Californias.  When  a  gov 
ernor  of  Alta  California  rose  in  the  morning  he 
did  not  know  whether  he  was  the  representative 
of  an  emperor,  a  king,  a  president,  or  a  dictator. 
As  a  result  of  these  perennial  disorders,  the  Mex 
ican  officials  ascribed  sinister  motives  to  the  most 
innocent  episodes.  No  sooner,  therefore,  did  Gov 
ernor  Echeandia  learn  of  the  arrival  in  his  prov 
ince  of  a  mysterious  party  of  Americans  than 
he  ordered  them  brought  under  escort  to  San 
Diego  for  examination.  Though  those  present 
probably  did  not  appreciate  it,  the  meeting  of 

140 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

Smith  and  Echeandia  in  the  palace  at  San  Diego 
was  a  peculiarly  significant  one.  There  sat  at  his 
ease  in  his  great  chair  of  state  the  saturnine  Mex 
ican  governor,  arrogant  and  haughty,  beruffled 
and  gold-laced,  his  high-crowned  sombrero  and 
his  velvet  jacket  heavy  with  bullion,  while  in  front 
of  him  stood  the  American  frontiersman,  gaunt, 
unshaven,  and  ragged,  but  as  cool  and  self-pos 
sessed  as  though  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  conquer 
ing  army  instead  of  a  forlorn  hope.  The  one  was 
as  truly  the  representative  of  a  passing  as  the  other 
was  of  a  coming  race.  Small  wonder  that  Eche 
andia,  as  he  observed  the  hardy  figures  and  deter 
mined  faces  of  the  Americans,  thought  to  himself 
how  small  would  be  Mexico's  chance  of  holding 
California  if  others  of  their  countrymen  began  to 
follow  in  their  footsteps.  He  and  his  officials 
cross-examined  Smith  as  closely  as  though  the 
frontiersman  was  a  prisoner  on  trial  for  his  life, 
as,  in  a  sense,  he  was,  for  almost  any  fate  might 
befall  him  and  his  companions  in  that  remote 
corner  of  the  continent  without  any  one  being 
called  to  account  for  it.  Smith  described  the 
series  of  misfortunes  which  had  led  him  to  cross 
the  ranges;  he  asserted  that  he  desired  nothing  so 
much  as  to  get  back  into  American  territory  again, 
and  he  earnestly  begged  the  governor  to  provide 

141 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

him  with  the  necessary  provisions  and  permit  him 
to  depart.  His  story  was  so  frank  and  plausible 
that  Echeandia,  with  characteristic  Spanish  sus 
picion,  promptly  disbelieved  every  word  of  it,  for 
why,  he  argued,  should  any  sane  man  make  so 
hazardous  a  journey  unless  he  were  a  spy  and  well 
paid  to  risk  his  life?  For  even  in  those  early  days, 
remember,  the  Mexicans  had  begun  to  fear  the 
ambitions  of  the  young  republic  to  the  eastward. 
So,  despite  their  protests,  he  ordered  the  Americans 
to  be  imprisoned — and  no  one  knew  better  than 
they  did  that,  once  within  the  walls  of  a  Mexi 
can  prison,  there  was  small  chance  of  their  seeing 
the  outside  world  again.  Fortunately  for  the  ex 
plorers,  however,  it  so  happened  that  there  were 
three  American  trading-schooners  lying  in  San 
Diego  harbor  at  the  time,  and  their  captains,  de 
termined  to  see  the  rights  of  their  fellow  country 
men  respected,  joined  in  a  vigorous  and  energetic 
protest  to  the  governor  against  this  high-handed 
and  unjustified  action.  This  seems  to  have  fright 
ened  Echeandia,  for  he  reluctantly  gave  orders  for 
the  release  of  Smith  and  his  companions,  but  or 
dered  them  to  leave  the  country  at  once,  and  by 
the  same  route  by  which  they  had  come. 

When  the  year  1827  was  but  a  few  days  old, 
therefore,  the  Americans  turned  their  faces  north- 

142 


The  Man  Who  Crossed,  the  Ranges 

ward,  but  instead  of  retracing  their  steps  in  ac 
cordance  with  Echeandia's  orders,  they  crossed 
the  coast  range,  probably  through  the  Tejon  Pass, 
and  kept  on  through  the  fertile  region  now  known 
as  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  in  the  hope  that  by 
crossing  the  Sierra  farther  to  the  northward  they 
would  escape  the  terrible  rigors  of  the  Colorado 
desert.  When  some  three  hundred  miles  north  of 
San  Gabriel  they  attempted  to  recross  the  ranges, 
but  a  feat  that  had  been  hazardous  in  midsum 
mer  was  impossible  in  midwinter,  and  the  entire 
expedition  nearly  perished  in  the  attempt.  Several 
of  the  men  and  all  the  horses  died  of  cold  and 
hunger,  and  it  was  only  by  incredible  exertions  that 
Smith  and  his  few  remaining  companions,  terribly 
frozen  and  totally  exhausted,  managed  to  reach  the 
Santa  Clara  Valley  and  Mission  San  Jose.  So 
slow  was  their  progress  that  the  news  of  their 
approach  preceded  them  and  caused  considerable 
disquietude  to  the  monks.  Learning  from  the 
Indians  that  he  and  his  tatterdemalion  followers 
were  objects  of  suspicion,  Smith  sent  a  letter  to 
the  father  superior,  in  which  he  gave  an  account 
of  his  arrival  at  San  Gabriel,  of  his  interview  with 
the  governor,  of  his  disaster  in  the  Sierras,  and 
of  his  present  pitiable  condition.  "I  am  a  long 
way  from  home,"  this  pathetic  missive  concludes, 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

"  and  am  anxious  to  get  there  as  soon  as  the  nature 
of  the  case  will  permit.  Our  situation  is  quite  un 
pleasant,  being  destitute  of  clothing  and  most  of 
the  necessaries  of  life,  wild  meat  being  our  prin 
cipal  subsistence.  I  am,  reverend  father,  your 
strange  but  real  friend  and  Christian  brother, 
Jedediah  Smith."  As  a  result  of  this  appeal,  the 
hospitality  of  the  mission  was  somewhat  grudg 
ingly  extended  to  the  Americans,  who  were  by 
this  time  in  the  most  desperate  condition. 

Hardships  that  would  kill  ordinary  men  were  but 
unpleasant  incidents  in  the  lives  of  the  pioneers, 
however,  and  in  a  few  weeks  they  were  as  fit  as 
ever  to  resume  their  journey.  But,  upon  think 
ing  the  matter  over,  Smith  decided  that  he  would 
never  be  content  if  he  went  back  without  having 
found  out  what  lay  still  farther  to  the  northward, 
for  in  him  was  the  insatiable  curiosity  and  the  in 
domitable  spirit  of  the  born  explorer.  But  as  his 
force,  as  well  as  his  resources,  had  become  sadly 
depleted,  he  felt  it  imperative  that  he  should  first 
return  to  Salt  Lake  and  bring  on  the  men,  horses, 
and  provisions  he  had  left  there.  Accordingly, 
leaving  most  of  his  party  in  camp  at  San  Jose,  he 
set  out  with  only  two  companions,  recrossed  the 
Sierra  at  one  of  its  highest  points  (the  place  he 
crossed  is  where  the  railway  comes  through  to-day) 

144 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

and  after  several  uncomfortably  narrow  escapes 
from  landslides  and  from  Indians,  eventually 
reached  the  camp  on  Great  Salt  Lake,  where  he 
found  that  his  people  had  long  since  given  him 
and  his  companions  up  for  dead. 

Breaking  camp  on  a  July  morning,  in  1827, 
Smith,  with  eighteen  men  and  two  women,  turned 
his  face  once  more  toward  California.  To  avoid 
the  snows  of  the  high  Sierras,  he  chose  the  route 
he  had  taken  on  his  first  journey,  reaching  the 
desert  country  to  the  north  of  the  Colorado  River 
in  early  August.  It  was  not  until  the  party  had 
penetrated  too  far  into  the  desert  to  retreat  that 
they  found  that  the  whole  country  was  burnt 
up.  For  several  days  they  pushed  on  in  the  hope 
of  finding  water.  Across  the  yellow  sand  wastes 
they  would  sight  the  sparkle  of  a  crystal  lake,  and 
would  hasten  toward  it  as  fast  as  their  jaded 
animals  could  carry  them,  only  to  find  that  it  was 
a  mirage.  Then  the  horrors  preliminary  to  death 
by  thirst  began:  the  animals,  their  blackened 
tongues  protruding  from  their  mouths,  staggered 
and  fell,  and  rose  no  more;  the  women  grew  de 
lirious  and  babbled  incoherent  nothings;  even  the 
hardiest  of  the  men  stumbled  as  they  marched,  or 
tried  to  frighten  away  by  shouts  and  gestures  the 
fantastic  shapes  which  danced  before  them.  At 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

last  there  came  a  morning  when  they  could  go  no 
farther.  Such  of  them  as  still  retained  their  facul 
ties  felt  that  it  was  the  end — that  is,  all  but  Jede- 
diah  Smith.  He  was  of  the  breed  which  does  not 
know  the  meaning  of  defeat,  because  they  are 
never  defeated  until  they  are  dead.  Loading  him 
self  with  the  empty  water-bottles,  he  set  out  alone 
into  the  desert,  determined  to  follow  one  of  the 
numerous  buffalo  trails,  for  he  knew  that  sooner 
or  later  it  must  lead  him  to  water  of  some  sort, 
even  if  to  nothing  more  than  a  buffalo-wallow. 
Racked  with  the  fever  of  thirst,  his  legs  shaking 
from  exhaustion,  he  plodded  on,  under  the  pitiless 
sun,  mile  after  mile,  hour  after  hour,  until,  strug 
gling  to  the  summit  of  a  low  divide,  he  saw  the 
channel  of  a  stream  in  the  valley  beneath  him. 
The  expedition  was  saved.  Stumbling  and  sli 
ding  down  the  slope  in  his  haste  to  quench  his 
intolerable  thirst,  he  came  to  a  sudden  halt  on 
the  river-bank.  It  was  nothing  but  an  empty 
watercourse  into  which  he  was  staring — the 
river  had  run  dry!  The  shock  of  such  a  dis 
appointment  would  have  driven  most  men  stark, 
staring  mad.  Only  for  a  moment,  however, 
was  the  veteran  frontiersman  staggered;  he  knew 
the  character  of  many  streams  in  the  West 
—that  often  their  waters  run  underground  a 

146 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

few  feet  below  the  surface,  and  in  a  moment  he 
was  on  his  knees  digging  frantically  in  the  soft 
sand.  Soon  the  sand  began  to  grow  moist,  and 
then  the  coveted  water  slowly  began  to  filter  up 
ward  into  the  little  excavation  he  had  hollowed. 
Throwing  himself  flat  on  the  ground,  he  buried 
his  burning  face  in  the  muddy  water — and  as  he 
did  so  a  shower  of  arrows  whistled  about  him.  A 
war-party  of  Comanches,  unobserved,  had  followed 
and  surrounded  him.  He  had  but  exchanged  the 
danger  of  death  by  thirst  for  the  far  more  dread 
ful  fate  of  death  by  torture.  Though  struck 
by  several  of  the  arrows,  he  held  the  Indians 
off  until  he  had  filled  his  water-bottles;  then, 
retreating  slowly,  taking  advantage  of  every  par 
ticle  of  cover,  as  only  a  veteran  plainsman  can, 
blazing  away  with  his  unerring  rifle  whenever 
an  Indian  was  incautious  enough  to  show  a  por 
tion  of  his  figure,  Smith  succeeded  in  getting  back 
to  his  companions  with  the  precious  water.  With 
their  dead  animals  for  breastworks,  the  pioneers 
succeeded  in  holding  the  Indians  at  bay  for  six- 
and-thirty  hours,  but  on  the  second  night  the 
redskins,  heavily  reinforced,  rushed  them  in  the 
night,  ten  of  the  men  and  the  two  women  being 
killed  in  the  hand-to-hand  fight  which  ensued, 
and  the  few  horses  which  remained  alive  being 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

stampeded.  I  rather  imagine  that  the  women 
were  shot  by  their  own  husbands,  for  the  women 
of  the  frontier  always  preferred  death  to  capture 
by  these  fiends  in  paint  and  feathers. 

How  Smith,  calling  all  his  craft  and  experience 
as  a  plainsman  to  his  assistance,  managed  to  lead 
his  eight  surviving  companions  through  the  en 
circling  Indians  by  night,  and  how,  wounded, 
horseless,  and  provisionless  as  they  were,  he  suc 
ceeded  in  guiding  them  across  the  ranges  to  San 
Bernardino,  is  but  another  example  of  this  for 
gotten  hero's  courage  and  resource.  Having  lost 
everything  that  he  possessed,  for  the  whole  of  his 
scanty  savings  had  been  invested  in  the  ill-fated 
expedition,  Smith,  with  such  of  his  men  as  were 
strong  enough  to  accompany  him,  set  out  to  rejoin 
the  party  he  had  left  some  months  previously  at 
Mission  San  Jose.  Scarcely  had  he  set  foot  within 
that  settlement,  however,  before  he  was  arrested 
and  taken  under  escort  to  Monterey,  where  he  was 
taken  before  the  governor,  who,  he  found  to  his 
surprise  and  dismay,  was  no  other  than  his  old  en 
emy  of  San  Diego,  Don  Jose  Echeandia.  This  time 
nothing  would  convince  Echeandia  that  Smith 
was  not  the  leader  of  an  expedition  which  had 
territorial  designs  on  California,  and  he  promptly 
ordered  him  to  be  taken  to  prison  and  kept  in 

148 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

solitary  confinement  as  a  dangerous  conspirator. 
Thereupon  Smith  resorted  to  the  same  expedient 
he  had  used  so  successfully,  and  begged  the  cap 
tains  of  the  American  vessels  in  the  harbor  of 
Monterey  for  protection.  So  forcible  were  their 
representations  that  Echeandia  finally  agreed  to 
release  Smith  on  his  swearing  to  leave  Califor 
nia  for  good  and  all.  To  this  proposal  Smith 
willingly  agreed  and  took  the  oath  required 
of  him,  but,  upon  being  released  from  prison, 
was  astounded  to  learn  that  the  governor  had 
given  orders  that  he  must  set  out  alone — that  his 
hunters  would  not  be  permitted  to  accompany  him. 
His  and  their  protestations  were  disregarded. 
Smith  must  start  at  once  and  unaccompanied. 
He  was  given  a  horse  and  saddle,  provisions, 
blankets,  a  rifle — and  nothing  more.  It  was  a 
sentence  of  death  which  Echeandia  had  had  pro 
nounced  on  this  American  frontiersman,  and  both 
he  and  Smith  knew  it.  Without  having  com 
mitted  any  crime — unless  it  was  a  crime  to  be  an 
American — Jedediah  Smith  was  driven  out  of  the 
territory  of  a  supposedly  friendly  nation,  and  told 
that  he  was  at  perfect  liberty  to  make  his  way 
across  two  thousand  miles  of  wilderness  to  the 
nearest  American  outpost — if  he  could. 

Striking  back  into   that  range  of  the  Sierras 
149 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

which  lies  southeast  of  Fresno,  Smith  suc 
ceeded  in  crossing  them  for  a  fourth  time,  evi 
dently  intending  to  make  his  way  back  to  his  old 
stamping-ground  on  the  Great  Salt  Lake.  Our 
knowledge  of  what  occurred  after  he  had  crossed 
the  ranges  for  the  last  time  is  confined  to  tales 
told  to  the  settlers  in  later  years  by  the  Indians. 
While  emerging  from  the  terrible  Death  Valley, 
where  hundreds  of  emigrants  were  to  lose  their 
lives  during  the  rush  to  the  gold-fields  a  quarter 
of  a  century  later,  he  was  attacked  at  a  water- 
hole  by  a  band  of  Indians.  For  many  years 
afterward  the  Comanches  were  wont  to  tell  with 
admiration  how  this  lone  pale-face,  coming  from 
out  of  the  setting  sun,  had  knelt  behind  his  dead 
horse  and  held  them  off  with  his  deadly  rifle  all 
through  one  scorching  summer's  day.  But  when 
nightfall  came  they  crept  up  very  silently  under 
cover  of  the  darkness  and  rushed  him.  His  scalp 
was  very  highly  valued,  for  it  had  cost  the  lives 
of  twelve  Comanche  braves. 

But  Jedediah  Smith  did  not  die  in  vain.  Tales 
of  the  rich  and  virgin  country  which  he  had  found 
beyond  the  ranges  flew  as  though  with  wings 
across  the  land;  soon  other  pioneers  made  their 
way  over  the  mountains  by  the  trails  which  he 
had  blazed;  long  wagon- trains  crawled  westward 

150 


The  Man  Who  Crossed  the  Ranges 

by  the  routes  which  he  had  taken;  strange  bands 
of  horsemen  pitched  their  tents  in  the  valleys 
where  he  had  camped.  The  mission  bells  grew 
silent;  the  monk  in  his  woollen  robe  and  the 
caballero  in  his  gold-laced  jacket  passed  away; 
settlements  of  hardy,  energetic,  nasal-voiced  folk 
from  beyond  the  Sierras  sprang  up  everywhere. 
Then  one  day  a  new  flag  floated  over  the  presidio 
in  Monterey — a  flag  that  was  not  to  be  pulled 
down.  The  American  republic  had  reached  the 
western  ocean,  and  thus  was  fulfilled  the  dream 
of  Jedediah  Smith,  the  man  who  showed  the  way. 


THE  FLAG  OF  THE  BEAR 


THE  FLAG  OF  THE  BEAR 

BECAUSE  the  battles  which  marked  its  es 
tablishment  were  really  only  skirmishes,  in 
which  but  an  insignificant  number  of  lives  were 
lost,  and  because  it  boasted  less  than  a  thousand 
citizens  all  told,  certain  of  our  historians  have 
been  so  undiscerning  as  to  assert  that  the  Bear 
Flag  Republic  was  nothing  but  a  travesty  and  a 
farce.  Therein  they  are  wrong.  Though  it  is 
doubtless  true  that  the  handful  of  frontiersmen 
who  raised  their  home-made  flag,  with  its  emblem 
of  a  grizzly  bear,  over  the  Californian  presidio  of 
Sonoma  on  that  July  morning  in  1846  took  them 
selves  much  more  seriously  than  the  circumstances 
warranted,  it  is  equally  true  that  their  action 
averted  the  seizure  of  California  by  England,  and 
by  forcing  the  hand  of  the  administration  at 
Washington  was  primarily  responsible  for  adding 
what  is  now  California,  Nevada,  Arizona,  New 
Mexico,  Utah,  and  more  than  half  of  Wyoming 
and  Colorado  to  the  Union.  The  series  of  in 
trigues  and  affrays  and  insurrections  which  re- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

suited  in  the  Pacific  coast  becoming  American 
instead  of  European  form  a  picturesque,  exciting, 
and  virtually  unwritten  chapter  in  our  national 
history,  a  chapter  in  which  furtive  secret  agents 
and  haughty  caballeros,  pioneers  in  fringed  buck 
skin,  and  naval  officers  in  gold-laced  uniforms  ail 
played  their  greater  or  their  lesser  parts. 

To  fully  understand  the  conditions  which  led 
up  to  the  "Bear  Flag  War,"  as  it  has  been  called, 
it  is  necessary  to  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  first 
quarter  of  the  last  century,  when  the  territory  of 
the  United  States  ended  at  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  the  red-white-and-green  flag  of  Mexico  floated 
over  the  whole  of  that  vast,  rich  region  which  lay 
beyond.  Under  the  Mexican  regime  the  territory 
lying  west  of  the  Sierra  Nevadas  was  divided  into 
the  provinces  of  Alta  (or  Upper)  and  Baja  (or 
Lower)  California,  the  population  of  the  two 
provinces  about  1845  totalling  not  more  than 
fifteen  thousand  souls,  nine-tenths  of  whom  were 
Mexicans,  Spaniards,  and  Indians,  the  rest  Ameri 
can  and  European  settlers.  The  foreigners,  among 
whom  Americans  greatly  predominated,  soon  be 
came  influential  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
numbers.  This  was  particularly  true  of  the 
Americans,  who,  solidified  by  common  interests, 
common  dangers,  and  common  ambitions,  ob- 

156 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

tained  large  grants  of  land,  built  houses  which  in 
certain  cases  were  little  short  of  forts,  frequently 
married  into  the  most  aristocratic  of  the  Cali- 
fornian  families,  and  before  long  practically  con 
trolled  the  commerce  of  the  entire  territory. 

It  was  only  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  the 
Mexicans  should  become  more  and  more  appre 
hensive  of  American  ambitions.  Nor  did  Presi 
dent  Jackson's  offer,  in  1835,  to  buy  Southern 
California — an  offer  which  was  promptly  refused- 
serve  to  do  other  than  strengthen  these  apprehen 
sions.  And  to  make  matters  worse,  if  such  a 
thing  were  possible,  Commodore  T.  ApCatesby 
Jones,  having  heard  a  rumor  that  war  had  broken 
out  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico,  and 
having  reason  to  believe  that  a  British  force  was 
preparing  to  seize  California,  landed  a  force  of 
bluejackets  and  marines,  and  on  October  21,  1842, 
raised  the  American  flag  over  the  presidio  at  Mon 
terey.  Although  Commodore  Jones,  finding  he 
had  acted  upon  misinformation,  lowered  the  flag 
next  day  and  tendered  an  apology  to  the  provin 
cial  officials,  the  incident  did  not  tend  to  relieve 
the  tension  which  existed  between  the  Mexicans 
and  the  Americans,  for  it  emphasized  the  ease 
with  which  the  country  could  be  seized,  and  hinted 
with  unmistakable  plainness  at  the  ultimate  in- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

tentions  of  the  United  States.  That  our  govern 
ment  intended  to  annex  the  Californias  at  the  first 
opportunity  that  offered  the  Mexicans  were  per 
fectly  aware,  for,  aroused  by  the  descriptions  of 
the  unbelievable  beauty  and  fertility  of  the  coun 
try  as  sent  back  by  those  daring  souls  who  had 
made  their  way  across  the  ranges,  the  hearts  of 
our  people  were  set  upon  its  acquisition.  The 
great  Bay  of  San  Francisco,  large  enough  to  shel 
ter  the  navies  of  the  world  and  the  gateway  to 
the  Orient,  the  fruitful,  sun-kissed  land  beyond 
the  Sierras,  the  political  domination  of  America, 
and  the  commercial  domination  of  the  Pacific — 
such  were  the  visions  which  inspired  our  people 
and  the  motives  which  animated  our  leaders,  and 
which  were  intensified  by  the  fear  of  England's 
designs  upon  this  western  land. 

As  the  numbers  of  the  American  settlers  gradu 
ally  increased,  the  jealousy  and  suspicion  of  the 
Mexican  officials  became  more  pronounced.  As 
early  as  1826  they  had  driven  Captain  Jedediah 
Smith,  the  first  American  to  make  his  way  to 
California  by  the  overland  route,  back  into  the 
mountains,  in  the  midst  of  winter,  without  com 
panions  and  without  provisions,  to  be  killed  by 
the  Indians.  In  1840  more  than  one  hundred 
American  settlers  were  suddenly  arrested  by  the 

158 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

Mexican  authorities  on  a  trumped-up  charge  of 
having  plotted  against  the  government,  marched 
under  military  guard  to  Monterey,  and  confined 
in  the  prison  there  under  circumstances  of  the 
most  barbarous  cruelty,  some  fifty  of  them  being 
eventually  deported  to  Mexico  in  chains.  Thomas 
O.  Larkin,  the  American  consul  at  Monterey,  upon 
visiting  the  prisoners  in  the  local  jail  where  they 
were  confined,  found  that  the  cells  had  no  floors, 
and  that  the  poor  fellows  stood  in  mud  and  water 
to  their  ankles.  Sixty  of  the  prisoners  he  found 
crowded  into  a  single  room,  twenty  feet  long  and 
eighteen  wide,  in  which  they  were  so  tightly  packed 
that  they  could  not  all  sit  at  the  same  time,  much 
less  lie  down.  The  room  being  without  windows 
or  other  means  of  ventilation,  the  air  quickly  be 
came  so  fetid  that  they  were  able  to  live  only  by 
dividing  themselves  into  platoons  which  took  turns 
in  standing  at  the  door  and  getting  a  few  breaths 
of  air  through  the  bars.  These  men,  whose  only 
crime  was  that  they  were  Americans,  were  con 
fined  in  this  hell-hole,  without  food  except  such 
as  their  friends  were  able  to  smuggle  in  to  them 
by  bribing  the  sentries,  for  eight  days.  And  this 
treatment  was  accorded  them,  remember,  not  be 
cause  they  were  conspirators — for  no  one  knew 
better  than  the  Mexican  authorities  that  they  were 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

not — but  because  it  seemed  the  easiest  means  of 
driving  them  out  of  the  country.  Throughout  the 
half-dozen  years  that  ensued  American  settlers 
were  subjected  to  a  systematic  campaign  of  an 
noyance,  persecution,  and  imprisonment  on  in 
numerable  frivolous  pretexts,  being  released  only 
on  their  promise  to  leave  California  immediately. 
By  1845,  therefore,  the  harassed  Americans,  in 
sheer  desperation,  were  ready  to  grasp  the  first 
opportunity  which  presented  itself  to  end  this 
intolerable  tyranny  for  good  and  all. 

It  was  not  only  the  outrageous  treatment  to 
which  they  were  subjected,  however,  nor  the  weak 
ness  and  instability  of  the  government  under 
which  they  were  living,  nor  even  the  insecurity  of 
their  lives  and  property  and  the  discouragements 
to  industry,  which  led  the  American  settlers  to 
decide  to  end  Mexican  rule  in  the  Californias. 
Texas  had  recently  been  annexed  by  the  United 
States  against  the  protests  of  Mexico,  an  American 
army  of  invasion  was  massed  along  the  Rio  Grande, 
and  war  was  certain.  It  required  no  extraor 
dinary  degree  of  intelligence,  then,  to  foresee  that 
the  coming  hostilities  would  almost  inevitably  re 
sult  in  Mexico  losing  her  Californian  provinces. 
Now  it  was  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that 
the  Mexican  Government  was  seriously  consider- 

160 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

ing  the  advisability  of  ceding  the  Californias  to 
Great  Britain,  and  thus  accomplishing  the  three 
fold  purpose  of  wiping  out  the  large  Mexican  debt 
due  to  British  bankers,  of  winning  the  friendship 
and  possibly  the  active  assistance  of  England  in 
the  approaching  war  with  the  United  States,  and 
of  preventing  the  Californias  from  falling  into 
American  hands.  The  danger  was,  therefore,  that 
England  would  step  in  before  us.  Nor  was  the 
danger  any  imaginary  one.  Her  ships  were 
watching  our  ships  on  the  Mexican  coast,  and  her 
secret  agents  who  infested  the  country  were  keep 
ing  their  fingers  constantly  on  the  pulse  of  public 
opinion.  Though  it  remains  to  this  day  a  matter 
of  conjecture  as  to  just  how  far  England  was  pre 
pared  to  go  to  obtain  this  territory,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  she  had  laid  her  plans  for  its  acquisi 
tion  in  one  way  or  another.  If  California  was  to 
be  added  to  the  Union,  therefore,  it  must  be  by  a 
sudden  and  daring  stroke. 

Meanwhile  the  authorities  at  Washington  had 
not  been  idle.  Though  Larkin  was  ostensibly  the 
American  consul  at  Monterey  and  nothing  more, 
in  reality  he  was  clothed  with  far  greater  powers, 
having  been  hurried  from  Washington  to  California 
for  the  express  purpose  of  secretly  encouraging  an 
insurrectionary  movement  among  the  American 

161 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

settlers,  and  of  keeping  our  government  informed 
of  the  plans  of  the  Mexicans  and  British.  Re 
ceiving  information  that  a  powerful  British  fleet 
— the  largest,  in  fact,  which  had  ever  been  seen 
in  Pacific  waters — was  about  to  sail  for  the  coast 
of  California,  the  administration  promptly  issued 
orders  for  a  squadron  of  war-ships  under  Commo 
dore  John  Drake  Sloat  to  proceed  at  full  speed  to 
the  Pacific  coast,  the  commander  being  given 
secret  instructions  to  back  up  Consul  Larkin  in 
any  action  which  he  might  take,  and  upon  receiv 
ing  word  that  the  United  States  had  declared  war 
against  Mexico  to  immediately  occupy  the  Cali- 
fornian  ports.  Then  ensued  one  of  the  most 
momentous  races  in  history,  over  a  course  ex 
tending  half-way  round  the  world,  the  contestants 
being  the  war-fleets  of  the  two  most  powerful 
maritime  nations,  and  the  prize  seven  hundred 
thousand  square  miles  of  immensely  rich  territory 
and  the  mastery  of  the  Pacific.  Commodore  Sloat 
laid  his  course  around  the  Horn,  while  the  Eng 
lish  commander,  Admiral  Trowbridge,  chose  the 
route  through  the  Indian  Ocean.  The  first  thing 
he  saw  as  he  entered  the  Bay  of  Monterey  was  the 
American  squadron  lying  at  anchor  in  the  harbor. 
Never  was  there  a  better  example  of  that  form 
of  territorial  expansion  which  has  come  to  be 

162 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

known  as  "pacific  penetration"  than  the  American 
conquest  of  California;  never  were  the  real  de 
signs  of  a  nation  and  the  schemes  of  its  secret 
agents  more  successfully  hidden.  Consul  Larkin, 
as  I  have  already  said,  was  quietly  working,  under 
confidential  instructions  from  the  State  Depart 
ment,  to  bring  about  a  revolution  in  California 
without  overt  aid  from  the  United  States;  the 
Californian  coast  towns  lay  under  the  guns  of 
American  war-ships,  whose  commanders  likewise 
had  secret  instructions  to  land  marines  and  take 
possession  of  the  country  at  the  first  opportunity 
that  presented  itself;  and,  as  though  to  complete 
the  chain  of  American  emissaries,  early  in  1846 
there  came  riding  down  from  the  Sierran  passes, 
at  the  head  of  what  pretended  to  be  an  exploring 
and  scientific  expedition,  the  man  who  was  to  set 
the  machinery  of  conquest  actually  in  motion. 

The  commander  of  the  expedition  was  a  young 
captain  of  engineers,  named  John  Charles  Fre 
mont,  who,  as  the  result  of  two  former  journeys 
of  exploration  into  the  wilderness  beyond  the 
Rockies,  had  already  won  the  sobriquet  of  "The 
Pathfinder."  Born  in  Savannah,  of  a  French 
father  and  a  Virginian  mother,  he  was  a  strange 
combination  of  aristocrat  and  frontiersman.  Dash 
ing,  debonair,  fearless,  reckless,  a  magnificent 
horseman,  a  dead-shot,  a  hardy  and  intrepid  ex- 

163 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

plorer,  equally  at  home  at  a  White  House  ball 
or  at  an  Indian  powwow,  he  was  probably  the 
most  picturesque  and  romantic  figure  in  the 
United  States.  These  characteristics,  combined 
with  extreme  good  looks,  a  gallant  manner,  and 
the  great  public  reputation  he  had  won  by  the 
vivid  and  interesting  accounts  he  had  published 
of  his  two  earlier  journeys,  had  completely  cap 
tured  the  popular  imagination,  so  that  the  young 
explorer  had  become  a  national  idol.  In  the  spring 
of  1845  he  was  despatched  by  the  National  Gov 
ernment  on  a  third  expedition,  which  had  as  its  os 
tensible  object  the  discovery  of  a  practicable  route 
from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  River,  but  which  was  really  to  lend 
encouragement  to  the  American  settlers  in  Cali 
fornia  in  any  secession  movement  which  they 
might  be  planning  and  to  afford  them  active  as 
sistance  should  war  be  declared.  Just  how  far 
the  government  had  instructed  Fremont  to  go  in 
fomenting  a  revolution  will  probably  never  be 
known,  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
his  father-in-law,  United  States  Senator  Benton, 
had  advised  him  to  seize  California  if  an  oppor 
tunity  presented  itself,  and  to  trust  to  luck  (and 
the  senator's  influence)  that  the  government  would 
approve  rather  than  repudiate  his  action. 

All  told,  Fremont's  expedition  numbered  barely 
164 


.5     a 

l! 

~      o 

K^  M 

>    .5 

0  « 

C       c 

1  -5 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

threescore  men — no  great  force,  surely,  with 
which  to  overthrow  a  government  and  win  an 
empire.  In  advance  of  the  little  column  rode  the 
four  Delaware  braves  whom  Fremont  had  brought 
with  him  from  the  East  to  act  as  scouts  and 
trackers,  and  whose  cunning  and  woodcraft  he  was 
willing  to  match  against  that  of  the  Indians  of 
the  plains.  Close  on  their  heels  rode  the  Path 
finder  himself,  clad  from  neck  to  heel  in  fringed 
buckskin,  at  his  belt  a  heavy  army  revolver  and 
one  of  those  vicious,  double-bladed  knives  to 
which  Colonel  Bowie,  of  Texas,  had  already  given 
his  name,  and  on  his  head  a  jaunty,  broad-brimmed 
hat,  from  beneath  which  his  long,  yellow  hair  fell 
down  upon  his  shoulders.  At  his  bridle  arm  rode 
Kit  Carson,  the  most  famous  of  the  plainsmen, 
whose  exploits  against  the  Indians  were  even  then 
familiar  stories  in  every  American  household. 
Behind  these  two  stretched  out  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  expedition — bronze-faced,  bearded,  reso 
lute  men,  well  mounted,  heavily  armed,  and  all 
wearing  the  serviceable  dress  of  the  frontier. 

Fremont  found  the  American  settlers  scattered 
through  the  interior  in  a  state  of  considerable 
alarm,  for  rumors  had  reached  them  that  the  Mex 
ican  Government  had  decided  to  drive  them  out 
of  the  country,  and  that  orders  had  been  issued 

165 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

to  the  provincial  authorities  to  incite  the  Indians 
against  them.  As  they  dwelt  for  the  most  part 
in  small,  isolated  communities,  scattered  over  a 
great  extent  of  country,  it  was  obvious  that,  if 
these  rumors  were  true,  their  lives  were  in  immi 
nent  peril.  They  had  every  reason  to  expect, 
moreover,  that  the  news  of  war  between  Mexico 
and  the  United  States  would  bring  down  on  them 
those  forms  of  punishment  and  retaliation  for 
which  the  Mexicans  were  notorious.  They  were 
confronted,  therefore,  with  the  alternative  of  aban 
doning  the  homes  they  had  built  and  the  fields 
they  had  tilled  and  seeking  refuge  in  flight  across 
the  mountains,  or  of  remaining  to  face  those  perils 
inseparable  from  border  warfare.  Nor  did  it  take 
them  long  to  decide  upon  resistance,  for  they  were 
not  of  the  breed  which  runs  away. 

Leaving  most  of  his  men  encamped  in  the  foot 
hills,  Fremont  pushed  on  to  Monterey,  then  the 
most  important  settlement  in  Upper  California, 
and  the  seat  of  the  provincial  government,  where 
he  called  upon  Don  Jose  Castro,  the  Mexican  com 
mandant,  explained  the  purposes  of  his  expedition, 
and  requested  permission  for  his  party  to  proceed 
northward  to  the  Columbia  through  the  San  Joa- 
quin  valley.  This  permission  Castro  grudgingly 
gave,  but  scarcely  had  Fremont  broken  camp  be- 

166 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

fore  the  Mexican,  who  had  hastily  gathered  an 
overwhelming  force  of  soldiers  and  vaqueros,  set 
out  upon  the  trail  of  the  Americans  with  the 
avowed  purpose  of  surprising  and  exterminating 
them.  Fortunately  for  the  Americans,  Consul 
Larkin,  getting  wind  of  Castro's  intended  treach 
ery,  succeeded  in  warning  Fremont,  who  instead 
of  taking  his  chances  in  a  battle  on  the  plains 
against  a  greatly  superior  force,  suddenly  oc 
cupied  the  precipitous  hill  lying  back  of  and 
commanding  Monterey,  known  as  the  Hawk's 
Peak,  intrenched  himself  there,  and  then  sent 
word  to  Castro  to  come  and  take  him.  Although 
the  Mexican  commander  made  a  military  dem 
onstration  before  the  American  intrenchments,  he 
was  wise  enough  to  refrain  from  attempting  to 
carry  a  position  of  such  great  natural  strength 
and  defended  by  such  unerring  shots  as  were 
Fremont's  frontiersmen.  Four  days  later  Fre 
mont,  feeling  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained 
by  holding  the  position  longer,  and  confident 
that  the  Mexicans  would  be  only  too  glad  to  see 
his  back,  quietly  broke  camp  one  night  and  re 
sumed  his  march  toward  Oregon. 

Scarcely  had  he  crossed  the  Oregon  line,  how 
ever,  before  he  was  overtaken  by  a  messenger  on 
a  reeking  horse,  who  had  been  despatched  by 

167 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Consul  Larkin  to  inform  him  that  an  officer  with 
urgent  despatches  from  Washington  had  arrived 
at  Monterey  and  was  hastening  northward  to 
overtake  him.  Fremont  immediately  turned  back, 
and  on  the  shores  of  the  Greater  Klamath  Lake 
met  Lieutenant  Archibald  Gillespie,  who  had 
travelled  from  New  York  to  Vera  Cruz  by  steamer, 
had  crossed  Mexico  to  Mazatlan  on  horseback, 
and  had  been  brought  up  the  Pacific  coast  to 
Monterey  in  an  American  war-ship.  The  exact 
contents  of  the  despatches  with  which  Gillespie 
had  been  intrusted  will  probably  never  be  known, 
for  having  reason  to  believe  that  his  mission  was 
suspected  by  the  Mexicans,  and  being  fearful  of 
arrest,  he  had  destroyed  the  despatches  after 
committing  their  contents  to  memory.  These 
contents  he  communicated  to  Fremont,  and  the 
fact  that  the  latter  immediately  turned  his  horse's 
head  Californiawards  is  the  best  proof  that  they 
contained  definite  instructions  for  him  to  stir  up 
the  American  settlers  to  revolt  and  so  gain  Cali 
fornia  for  the  Union  by  what  some  one  has  aptly 
described  as  "neutral  conquest." 

The  news  of  Fremont's  return  spread  among  the 
scattered  settlers  as  though  by  wireless,  and  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  hardy,  determined  men 
came  pouring  into  camp  to  offer  him  their  serv- 

168 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

ices.  But  his  hands  were  tied.  His  instruc 
tions  from  Washington,  while  ordering  him  to 
lend  his  encouragement  to  an  insurrectionary 
movement,  expressly  forbade  him  to  take  the  in 
itiative  in  any  hostilities  until  he  received  word 
that  war  with  Mexico  had  been  declared — and 
that  word  had  not  yet  come.  These  facts  he 
communicated  to  the  settlers.  Fremont's  assur 
ance  that  the  American  Government  sympathized 
with  their  aspirations  for  independence,  and  could 
be  counted  upon  to  back  up  any  action  they  might 
take  to  secure  it,  was  all  that  the  settlers  needed. 
On  the  evening  of  June  13,  1846,  some  fifty  Ameri 
cans  living  along  the  Sacramento  River  met  at 
the  ranch  of  an  old  Indian-fighter  and  bear-hunter 
named  Captain  Meredith,  and  under  his  leader 
ship  rode  across  the  country  in  a  northwesterly 
direction  through  the  night.  Dawn  found  them 
close  to  the  presidio  of  Sonoma,  which  was  the 
residence  of  the  Mexican  general  Vallejo  and  the 
most  important  military  post  north  of  San  Fran 
cisco.  Leaving  their  horses  in  the  shelter  of  the 
forest,  the  Americans  stole  silently  forward  in  the 
dimness  cf  the  early  morning,  overpowered  the 
sentries,  burst  in  the  gates,  and  had  taken  posses 
sion  of  the  town  and  surrounded  the  barracks  be 
fore  the  garrison  was  fairly  awake.  General  Va 
llejo  and  his  officers  were  captured  in  their  beds, 

169 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

and  were  sent  under  guard  to  a  fortified  ranch 
known  as  Sutter's  fort,  which  was  situated  some 
distance  in  the  interior.  In  addition  to  the  pris 
oners,  nine  field-guns,  several  hundred  stands  of 
arms,  and  a  considerable  supply  of  ammunition 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Americans.  The  first 
blow  had  been  struck  in  the  conquest  of  California. 

The  question  now  arose  as  to  what  they  should 
do  with  the  town  they  had  captured,  for  Fremont 
had  no  authority  to  take  it  over  for  the  United 
States,  or  to  muster  the  men  who  took  it  into  the 
American  service.  The  embattled  settlers  found 
themselves,  in  fact,  to  be  in  the  embarrassing  posi 
tion  of  being  men  without  a  country.  After  a 
council  of  war  they  decided  to  organize  a  pro-tern. 
government  of  their  own  to  administer  the  terri 
tory  until  such  time  as  it  should  be  formally  an 
nexed  to  the  United  States.  I  doubt  if  a  govern 
ment  was  ever  established  so  quickly  and  under 
such  rough-and-ready  circumstances.  After  an 
informal  ballot  it  was  announced  that  William  B. 
Ide,  a  leading  spirit  among  the  settlers,  had  been 
unanimously  elected  governor  and  commander-in- 
chief  "of  the  independent  forces";  John  H.  Nash, 
who  had  been  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  the  East 
before  he  had  emigrated  to  California,  being  named 
chief  justice  of  the  new  republic. 

For  a  full-fledged  nation  not  to  have  a  flag  of 
170 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

its  own  was,  of  course,  unthinkable;  so,  as  most  of 
its  citizens  were  hunters  and  adventurers,  when 
some  one  suggested  that  the  grizzly  bear,  because 
of  its  indomitable  courage  and  tenacity  and  its 
ferocity  when  aroused,  would  make  a  peculiarly 
appropriate  emblem  for  the  new  banner,  the 
suggestion  was  adopted  with  enthusiasm,  and  a 
committee  of  two  was  appointed  to  put  it  into 
immediate  execution.  A  young  settler  named 
William  Ford,  who  had  been  imprisoned  by  the 
Mexicans  in  the  jail  at  Sonoma,  and  who  had 
been  released  when  his  countrymen  captured  the 
place,  and  William  Todd,  an  emigrant  from  Illi 
nois,  were  the  makers  of  the  flag.  On  a  piece  of 
unbleached  cotton  cloth,  a  yard  wide  and  a  yard 
and  a  half  long,  they  painted  the  rude  figure  of  a 
grizzly  bear  ready  to  give  battle.  This  strange 
banner  they  raised,  at  noon  on  June  14,  amid  a 
storm  of  cheers  and  a  salute  from  the  captured 
cannon,  on  the  staff  where  so  recently  had  floated 
the  flag  of  Mexico,  and  from  it  the  Bear  Flag 
Republic  took  its  name. 

Scarcely  had  Fremont  received  the  news  of  the 
capture  of  Sonoma  and  the  proclamation  of  the 
Bear  Flag  Republic  than  word  reached  him  that 
a  large  force  of  Mexicans  was  on  its  way  to  re 
take  the  town.  Disregarding  his  instructions 
from  Washington,  and  throwing  all  caution  to 

171 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

the  winds,  Fremont  instantly  decided  to  stake 
everything  on  giving  his  support  to  his  imperilled 
countrymen.  His  own  men  reinforced  by  a  num 
ber  of  volunteers,  he  arrived  at  Sonoma,  after  a 
forced  march  of  thirty-six  hours,  only  to  find  the 
Bear  Flag  men  still  in  possession.  The  number 
of  the  enerriy,  as  well  as  their  intentions,  had,  it 
seems,  been  greatly  exaggerated,  the  force  in  ques 
tion  being  but  a  small  party  of  troopers  which 
Castro  had  despatched  to  the  Mission  of  San 
Rafael,  on  the  north  shore  of  San  Francisco  Bay, 
to  prevent  several  hundred  cavalry  remounts 
which  were  stabled  there  from  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  Americans.  Realizing  the  value  of 
these  horses  to  the  settlers  in  the  guerilla  campaign 
which  seemed  likely  to  ensue,  Fremont  succeeded 
in  capturing  them  after  a  sharp  skirmish  with  the 
Mexicans.  Hurrying  back  to  Sonoma,  he  learned 
that  during  his  absence  Ide  and  his  men  had  re 
pulsed  an  attack  by  a  body  of  Mexican  regulars, 
under  General  de  la  Torre,  reinforced  by  a  band 
of  ruffians  and  desperadoes  led  by  an  outlaw 
named  Padilla,  inflicting  so  sharp  a  defeat  that 
the  only  enemies  left  in  that  part  of  the  country 
were  the  scattered  fugitives  from  this  force,  these 
being  hunted  down  and  summarily  dealt  with  by 
the  frontiersmen.  Having  now  irrevocably  com 
mitted  himself  to  the  insurgent  cause,  and  feeling 

172 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

that,  if  he  were  to  be  hanged,  it  might  as  well  be 
for  a  sheep  as  for  a  lamb,  Fremont  decided  on  the 
capture  of  San  Francisco.  The  San  Francisco  of 
1846  had  little  in  common  with  the  San  Francisco 
of  to-day,  remember,  for  on  the  site  where  the 
great  Western  metropolis  now  stands  there  was 
nothing  but  a  village  consisting  of  a  few-score 
adobe  houses  and  the  Mexican  presidio,  or  fort, 
the  latter  containing  a  considerable  supply  of  arms 
and  ammunition.  Accompanied  by  Kit  Carson, 
Lieutenant  Gillespie,  and  a  small  detachment  of 
his  men,  Fremont  crossed  the  Bay  of  San  Fran 
cisco  in  a  sailing-boat  by  night,  and  took  the  Mex 
ican  garrison  so  completely  by  surprise  that  they 
surrendered  without  firing  a  shot.  The  gateway 
to  the  Orient  was  ours. 

Fremont  now  prepared  to  take  the  offensive 
against  Castro,  who  was  retreating  on  Los  Angeles, 
but  just  as  he  was  about  to  start  on  his  march 
southward  a  messenger  brought  the  great  news 
that  Admiral  Sloat,  having  received  word  that 
hostilities  had  commenced  along  the  Rio  Grande, 
had  landed  his  marines  at  Monterey,  and  on  July  7, 
to  the  thunder  of  saluting  war-ships,  had  raised 
the  American  flag  over  the  presidio,  and  had 
proclaimed  the  annexation  of  California  to  the 
Union.  When  the  Bear  Flag  men  learned  the 
great  news  they  went  into  a  frenzy  of  enthusiasm; 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

whooping,  shouting,  singing  snatches  of  patriotic 
songs,  and  firing  their  pistols  in  the  air.  Quickly 
the  standard  of  the  fighting  grizzly  was  lowered 
and  the  flag  of  stripes  and  stars  hoisted  in  its 
place,  while  the  rough-clad,  bearded  settlers,  who 
had  waited  so  long  and  risked  so  much  that  this 
very  thing  might  come  to  pass,  sang  the  Doxology 
with  tears  running  down  their  faces.  As  the  folds 
of  the  familiar  banner  caught  the  breeze  and 
floated  out  over  the  flat-roofed  houses  of  the  little 
town,  Ide,  the  late  chief  of  the  three-weeks  re 
public,  jumping  on  a  powder  barrel,  swung  his 
sombrero  in  the  air  and  shouted:  "Now,  boys,  all 
together,  three  cheers  for  the  Union ! "  The  moist 
eyes  and  the  lumps  in  the  throats  brought  by  the 
sight  of  the  old  flag  did  not  prevent  the  little 
band  of  frontiersmen  from  responding  with  a  roar 
which  made  the  windows  of  Sonoma  rattle. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Admiral  Sloat  had 
placed  himself  in  a  very  embarrassing  position, 
for  he  had  based  his  somewhat  precipitate  action 
in  seizing  California  on  what  he  had  every  reason 
to  believe  was  authentic  news  that  war  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico  had  actually  begun, 
but  which  proved  next  day  to  be  merely  an  un 
confirmed  rumor.  If  a  state  of  war  really  did 
exist,  then  both  Sloat  and  Fremont  were  justified 
in  their  aggressions;  but  if  it  did  not,  then  they 

i74 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

might  have  considerable  difficulty  in  explaining 
their  action  in  commencing  hostilities  against  a 
nation  with  which  we  were  at  peace.  So  Sloat  be 
gan  "to  get  cold  feet,57  asserting  that  he  was  forced 
to  act  as  he  had  because  he  had  received  reliable 
information  that  the  British,  whose  fleet  was  lying 
oft  Monterey,  were  on  the  point  of  seizing  Cali 
fornia  themselves.  Fremont,  on  his  part,  claimed 
to  have  acted  in  defence  of  the  American  settlers 
in  the  interior,  who  without  his  assistance  would 
have  been  massacred  by  the  Mexicans.  At  this 
juncture  Commodore  Stockton  arrived  at  Mon 
terey  in  the  frigate  Congress,  and  as  Sloat  was  now 
thoroughly  frightened  and  only  too  glad  to  trans 
fer  the  responsibility  he  had  assumed  to  other 
shoulders,  Stockton,  who  was  the  junior  officer, 
asked  for  and  readily  obtained  permission  to  as 
sume  command  of  the  operations.  Fremont, 
who  had  reached  Monterey  with  several  hundred 
riflemen,  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  of 
the  land  forces  by  Stockton,  and  was  ordered  to 
embark  his  men  on  one  of  the  war-ships  and  pro 
ceed  at  once  to  capture  San  Diego,  at  that  time 
by  far  the  most  important  place  in  California. 
Stockton  himself,  after  raising  the  American  flag 
over  San  Francisco  and  Santa  Barbara,  sailed 
down  the  coast  to  San  Pedro,  the  port  of  Los 
Angeles,  where  he  disembarked  a  force  of  blue- 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

jackets  and  marines  for  the  taking  of  the  latter 
city,  within  which  the  Mexican  commander,  Gen 
eral  Castro,  had  shut  himself  up  with  a  consider 
able  number  of  troops,  and  where  he  promised  to 
make  a  desperate  resistance. 

As  Stockton  came  marching  up  from  San  Pedro 
at  the  head  of  his  column  he  was  met  by  a  Mexican 
carrying  a  flag  of  truce  and  bearing  a  message 
from  Castro  warning  the  American  commander  in 
the  most  solemn  terms  that  if  his  forces  dared  to 
set  foot  within  Los  Angeles  they  would  be  going 
to  their  own  funerals.  "Present  my  compliments 
to  General  Castro,"  Stockton  told  the  messenger, 
"and  ask  him  to  have  the  kindness  to  have  the 
church  bells  tolled  for  our  funerals  at  eight  o'clock 
to-morrow  morning,  for  at  that  hour  I  shall  enter 
the  city."  Upon  receipt  of  this  disconcerting 
message  Castro  slipped  out  of  Los  Angeles  that 
night,  without  firing  a  shot  in  its  defence,  and  at 
eight  o'clock  on  the  following  morning,  Stockton, 
just  as  he  had  promised,  came  riding  in  at  the 
head  of  his  men. 

After  garrisoning  the  surrounding  towns  and 
ridding  the  countryside  of  prowling  bands  of 
Mexican  guerillas,  Stockton  officially  proclaimed 
California  a  Territory  of  the  United  States,  insti 
tuted  a  civil  government  along  American  lines, 
and  appointed  Fremont  as  the  first  Territorial 

176 


The  Flag  of  the  Bear 

governor.  Before  the  year  1846  had  drawn  to  a 
close  these  two  Americans,  the  one  a  rough-and- 
ready  sailor,  the  other  a  youthful  and  impetuous 
soldier,  assisted  by  a  few  hundred  marines  and 
frontiersmen,  had  completed  the  conquest  and 
pacification  of  a  territory  having  a  greater  area 
and  greater  natural  resources  than  those  of  all 
the  countries  conquered  by  Napoleon  put  together. 
Thus  ended  the  happy,  lazy,  luxury-loving  society 
of  Spanish  California.  Another  society,  less  lux 
urious,  less  light-hearted,  less  contented,  but  more 
energetic,  more  progressive,  and  better  fitted  for 
the  upbuilding  of  a  nation,  took  its  place.  There 
are  still  to  be  found  in  California  a  few  men, 
white-haired  and  stoop-shouldered  now,  who 
were  themselves  actors  in  this  drama  I  have  de 
scribed,  and  who  delight  to  tell  of  those  stirring 
days  when  Fremont  and  his  frontiersmen  came 
riding  down  from  the  passes,  and  the  embattled 
settlers  of  Sonoma  founded  their  short-lived 
Republic  of  the  Bear. 


177 


THE  KING  OF  THE  FILIBUSTERS 


THE  KING  OF  THE  FILIBUSTERS 

IN  one  of  the  public  squares  of  San  Jose,  which 
is  the  capital  of  Costa  Rica,  there  is  a  marble 
statue  of  a  stern-faced  young  woman,  with  her 
foot  planted  firmly  on  a  gentleman's  neck.  The 
young  woman  is  symbolic  of  the  Republic  of  Costa 
Rica,  and  the  gentleman  ground  beneath  her  heel 
is  supposed  to  represent  the  American  filibuster 
and  soldier  of  fortune,  William  Walker.  Now, 
before  going  any  farther,  justice  requires  me  to 
explain  that  Walker's  downfall  was  not  due  to 
Costa  Rica,  as  the  citizens  of  that  little  republic 
would  like  the  world  to  believe,  and  as  the  bom 
bastic  statue  in  the  plaza  of  its  capital  would  lead 
one  to  suppose,  but  to  a  far  greater  and  richer 
power,  whose  victories  were  won  with  dollars  in 
stead  of  bayonets,  whose  capital  was  New  York 
City,  and  whose  name  was  Cornelius  Vanderbilt. 
To  the  younger  generation  the  name  of  William 
Walker  carries  no  significance,  but  to  the  gray- 
heads  whose  recollections  antedate  the  Civil  War 
the  mention  of  it  brings  back  a  flood  of  thrilling 

181 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

memories,  while  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  that  wild  region  lying  between  the  Isthmus  of 
Tehuantepec  and  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  it  is 
still  a  synonym  for  unfaltering  courage.  His 
weakness  was  ambition;  his  fault  was  failure. 
Had  he  succeeded  in  realizing  his  ambitions — and 
he  failed  only  by  the  narrowest  of  margins — he 
would  have  been  lauded  as  another  Cortez,  and 
would  have  received  stars  and  crosses  instead  of 
bullets.  Had  his  life  not  been  cut  short  by  a 
Honduran  firing-party,  it  is  possible,  indeed 
probable,  that,  instead  of  there  being  six  states  in 
Central  America  there  would  be  but  one,  and  in 
that  one  the  institution  of  slavery  might  still 
exist.  Though  I  have  scant  sympathy  with  the 
motives  which  animated  Walker,  and  though  I 
believe  that  his  death  was  for  the  best  good  of  the 
Central  American  peoples,  he  was  the  very  antith 
esis  of  the  cutthroat  and  blackguard  and  outlaw 
which  he  has  been  painted,  being,  on  the  contrary, 
a  very  brave  and  honest  gentleman,  of  whom 
his  countrymen  have  no  reason  to  feel  ashamed, 
and  that  is  why  I  am  going  to  tell  his  story. 

The  eldest  son  of  a  Scotch  banker,  Walker  was 
born  in  1824  in  Nashville,  Tennessee.  His  father, 
a  stiff-necked  Presbyterian  who  held  morning  and 
evening  prayers,  asked  an  interminable  grace  be- 

182 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

fore  every  meal,  and  took  his  family  to  church 
three  times  on  Sunday,  had  set  his  heart  on  his 
son  entering  the  ministry,  and  it  was  with  a  pulpit 
and  parish  in  view  that  young  Walker  was  edu 
cated.  By  the  time  that  he  was  ready  to  enter  the 
theological  school,  however,  he  decided  that  he 
preferred  M.D.  instead  of  D.D.  after  his  name, 
whereupon,  much  to  his  father's  disappointment, 
he  insisted  on  taking  the  medical  course  at  the 
University  of  Tennessee,  following  it  up  by  two 
years  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  Thor 
oughly  equipped  to  practise  his  chosen  profession, 
he  opened  an  office  in  Philadelphia,  but  in  a  few 
months  the  routine  of  a  doctor's  life  palled  upon 
him,  so,  taking  down  his  brass  door-plate,  he  went 
to  New  Orleans,  where,  after  two  years  of  study,  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar.  But  he  soon  found  that 
briefs  and  summonses  were  scarcely  more  to  his 
liking  than  prescriptions  and  pills,  so,  with  the 
prompt  decision  which  was  one  of  his  most  marked 
characteristics,  he  closed  his  law-office  and  ob 
tained  a  position  as  editorial  writer  on  a  New 
Orleans  newspaper.  Within  a  year  the  restless 
ness  which  had  led  him  to  abandon  the  church, 
medicine,  and  the  bar  caused  him  to  give  up 
journalism  in  its  turn.  At  this  time,  1852,  the 
Californian  gold  fever  was  at  its  mad  height,  and 

183 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

to  the  Pacific  coast  were  pouring  streams  of  for 
tune-seekers  and  adventure-lovers  from  every 
quarter  of  the  globe.  One  of  the  latter  was 
Walker,  and  it  was  while  editor  of  the  San  Fran 
cisco  Herald,  when  only  twenty-eight  years  old, 
that  his  amazing  career  really  began. 

Walker  was  not  of  the  sort  who  could  content 
himself  for  any  length  of  time  within  the  stuffy 
walls  of  an  editorial  sanctum.  His  fingers  were 
made  to  grasp  something  more  virile  than  the 
pen.  Nor  did  he  make  any  attempt  to  win  a  for 
tune  with  pick  and  shovel  in  the  gold  fields.  His 
ambitions  were  neither  intellectual  nor  mercenary, 
but  political,  for  from  his  boyhood  days  in  Nash 
ville  he  had  dreamed,  as  all  boys  worth  their  salt 
do  dream,  of  some  day  founding  a  state,  with 
himself  as  its  ruler,  in  that  wild  and  savage  region 
below  the  Rio  Grande.  Enlisting  half  a  hundred 
kindred  souls  from  the  hordes  of  the  reckless,  the 
adventurous,  and  the  needy  which  were  pouring 
into  California  by  boat  and  wagon-train,  Walker 
chartered  a  small  vessel  and  set  sail  from  San 
Francisco  for  the  coast  of  Mexico.  His  avowed 
object  was  a  purely  humanitarian  one:  to  protect 
the  women  and  children  living  along  the  Mexican 
frontier  from  massacre  by  the  Indians,  the  state 
of  Sonora  being  at  that  time  more  under  the 

184 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

dominion  of  the  Apaches  than  it  was  under  that 
of  Mexico.  But  it  was  not  the  protection  of  the 
women  and  children — though  they  needed  pro 
tection  badly  enough,  goodness  knows — which  led 
Walker  to  embark  on  this  hare-brained  expedition. 
He  was  lured  southward  by  a  dream  of  empire, 
an  empire  of  which  he  should  be  the  ruler,  and 
which  should  be  founded  on  slavery.  By  this 
time,  remember,  the  slavery  question  in  the 
United  States  had  become  exceedingly  acute,  the 
future  of  the  institution  on  this  continent  largely 
depending  upon  whether  the  next  States  admitted 
to  the  Union  should  be  slave  or  free.  Walker  was 
a  sincere,  even  fanatical,  believer  in  slavery. 
Born  and  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  slavery,  to 
Walker  it  was  as  sacred,  as  God-given  an  institu 
tion  as  the  Fast  of  Ramadan  is  to  the  Moslem  or 
the  Feast  of  the  Passover  to  the  Jew.  Convinced 
that  friction  over  this  question  would  sooner  or 
later  force  the  slave-holding  States  to  secede  from 
the  Union,  he  determined  to  extend  the  area  of 
slavery  by  conquering  that  portion  of  northern 
Mexico  immediately  adjacent  to  the  United  States, 
to  establish  an  independent  government  there,  and 
eventually  to  annex  his  country  to  the  South,  thus 
counteracting  the  growing  movement  for  aboli 
tion,  which,  with  the  admission  of  new  Northern 

185 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

territories,   already  hinted    at    the  overthrow  of 
slavery. 

Financed  by  Southern  friends  whose  motives 
were  probably  considerably  less  altruistic  than  his 
own,  Walker  landed  at  Cape  San  Lucas,  the  ex 
treme  southern  point  of  the  Mexican  territory  of 
Southern  California,  in  October,  1852,  with  an 
"army  of  invasion"  of  forty-five  men.  Instead 
of  hastening  to  protect  the  women  and  children 
of  whom  he  had  talked  so  feelingly,  he  sailed 
up  the  coast  to  the  territorial  capital  of  La  Paz, 
which  he  seized,  where  he  issued  a  proclama 
tion  announcing  the  annexation  of  the  neighbor 
ing  state  of  Sonora,  in  which  he  had  not  yet  set 
foot,  giving  to  the  two  states  the  name  of  the 
"Republic  of  Sonora,"  and  proclaiming  himself 
its  first  president.  As  soon  as  the  news  of  this 
initial  success  reached  San  Francisco,  Walker's 
sympathizers  there  busied  themselves  in  recruiting 
reinforcements,  three  hundred  desperadoes  who 
boasted  that  they  were  afraid  of  nothing  "on  two 
feet  or  four"  being  shipped  to  him  at  La  Paz  a 
few  weeks  later.  These  men  were  looked  upon 
as  hard  cases  even  in  the  San  Francisco  of  the 
early  fifties,  and,  if  they  had  not  consented  to 
leave  the  country  to  assist  Walker,  many  of  them 
would  probably  have  left  it  sooner  or  later  at  the 

186 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

end  of  a  rope  in  the  hands  of  the  local  vigilance 
committee.  When  this  force  of  scoundrels  ar 
rived  at  La  Paz  and  found  themselves  under  the 
command  of  a  quiet,  mild-mannered,  beardless 
youth  of  twenty-eight,  instead  of  the  brawny, 
foul-mouthed,  swashbuckling  leader  whom  they 
had  expected,  they  promptly  hatched  a  scheme  to 
blow  up  the  magazine,  seize  the  ship  and  the  stores 
of  the  expedition  in  the  ensuing  confusion,  and 
make  their  way  back  to  the  United  States,  leav 
ing  Walker  to  shift  for  himself.  Warning  of  the  con 
spiracy  reaching  him,  however,  Walker  displayed 
for  the  first  time  those  traits  which  were  later  to 
make  his  name  a  word  of  terror  in  the  ears  of  men 
who  bragged  that  they  feared  neither  God  nor 
man.  Arresting  the  ringleaders,  he  had  two  of 
them  tried  by  court-martial  and  shot  within  an 
hour;  two  of  the  others  he  ordered  flogged  and 
drummed  out  of  camp,  to  take  their  chances  among 
the  hostile  Mexicans  and  Indians.  But,  though 
this  act  gained  Walker  the  fear  and  respect  of  his 
followers,  the  newcomers  among  them  had  no 
stomach  for  a  leader  who  could  punish,  so  when 
he  called  for  volunteers  to  accompany  him  in  the 
conquest  of  Sonora  less  than  a  hundred  men 
offered  to  follow  him. 

From  the  very  first  the  shadow  of  failure  hung 
187 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

over  the  enterprise.  To  begin  with,  there  is  no 
more  savage  and  desolate  region  on  the  American 
continent  than  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California, 
it  being  so  barren  and  destitute  that  even  the  liz 
ards  have  to  scramble  for  an  existence.  Mexicans 
and  Indians  hung  upon  the  flanks  of  the  little  col 
umn  night  and  day,  as  buzzards  follow  a  dying 
steer.  There  was  neither  medicine  nor  medical 
instruments  with  the  expedition,  and  the  wounded 
died  from  lack  of  the  most  elementary  care. 
Their  shoes  gave  out  and  the  men  marched  bare 
foot  over  sun-scorched  rocks  and  needle  cactus, 
leaving  a  trail  of  crimson  behind  them  in  the  sand. 
Their  provisions  were  soon  exhausted,  and  their 
only  food  was  beef  which  they  killed  on  the  march. 
For  years  afterward  the  route  of  that  ill-fated 
expedition  could  be  traced  from  La  Paz  to  the 
Colorado  River  by  the  bleaching  skeletons  of  the 
men  who  fell  by  the  way.  By  the  time  the  head 
of  the  Gulf  of  California  was  reached  the  expedi 
tion  had  dwindled  to  barely  twoscore  men.  It 
was  no  longer  a  question  of  conquering  Sonora; 
it  was  a  question  of  getting  back  to  the  States 
alive. 

With  sinking  heart,  but  imperturbable  face, 
Walker  led  his  little  band  of  starving,  fever- 
racked,  exhausted  men  toward  the  Californian 

188 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

line.  Three  miles  of  road  led  through  a  moun 
tain  pass  into  the  United  States  and  safety.  But 
the  pass  was  held  by  a  force  of  Mexican  sol 
diery  under  Colonel  Melendrez,  and  his  Indian 
allies  were  scattered  over  the  plain  below.  And, 
as  though  to  give  a  final  touch  of  irony  to  the 
situation  in  which  Walker  and  his  men  found 
themselves,  from  their  position  on  the  Mexican 
hillside  they  could  look  across  into  American  ter 
ritory,  could  see  the  American  flag,  their  flag, 
fluttering  over  the  military  post  south  of  San 
Diego,  could  even  see  the  sun  glinting  upon  the 
bits  and  sabres  of  the  troop  of  American  cavalry 
drawn  up  along  the  border.  Four  Indians  bearing 
a  flag  of  truce  approached.  They  bore  a  message 
from  the  Mexican  commander  to  the  filibusters. 
If  they  would  surrender  their  leader  and  give  up 
their  arms,  Melendrez  sent  word,  they  would  be 
permitted  to  leave  the  country  unmolested.  But 
after  you  have  fought  and  bled  and  marched  and 
starved  with  a  man  for  a  year,  you  are  not  likely 
to  abandon  him,  particularly  when  the  end  is  in 
sight,  so  they  sent  back  word  to  Melendrez  that 
if  he  wanted  their  arms  he  would  have  to  come 
and  take  them.  Meanwhile  the  American  com 
mander,  Major  McKinstry,  had  drawn  up  his 
troopers  along  the  boundary-line  and  awaited  the 

189 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

result  of  the  unequal  struggle  like  an  umpire  at  a 
foot-ball  game.  Walker,  who  knew  perfectly  well 
that  he  deserved  no  aid  from  the  United  States, 
and  that  he  would  get  none,  appreciated  that  if 
he  was  to  get  out  of  this  predicament  alive  it 
must  be  by  his  own  wits.  Concealing  a  dozen  of 
his  men  among  the  rocks  and  sage-brush  which 
lined  the  road  on  either  side,  with  the  remainder 
of  his  force  he  pretended  to  beat  a  panic-stricken 
retreat.  Melendrez,  confident  that  it  was  now 
all  over  but  the  shouting,  swept  down  the  road  in 
pursuit.  But  as  the  Mexicans  rode  into  the  am 
bush  which  Walker  had  prepared  for  them  the 
hidden  filibusters  emptied  a  dozen  saddles  at  a 
single  volley,  and  the  soldiers,  terrified  and  de 
moralized,  wheeled  and  fled  for  their  lives.  Thirty 
minutes  later  the  President,  the  Cabinet,  and  all 
that  remained  of  the  standing  army  of  the  late 
Republic  of  Sonora  stumbled  across  the  American 
boundary  and  surrendered  to  Major  McKinstry. 
It  was  May  8,  1854,  and  in  such  fashion  Walker 
celebrated  his  thirtieth  birthday. 

Sent  to  San  Francisco  as  a  political  prisoner, 
Walker  was  tried  for  violating  the  neutrality  laws 
of  the  United  States,  was  acquitted — for  the  mem 
bers  of  a  Californian  jury  could  not  but  sympathize 
with  such  a  man — and  once  again  found  himself 

190 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

writing  editorials  for  the  San  Francisco  Herald. 
His  narrow  escape  from  death  in  Mexico  had  only 
served  to  whet  his  appetite  for  adventure,  however, 
so  when  he  was  not  doing  his  newspaper  work  he 
was  poring  over  an  atlas  in  search  of  some  other 
land  where  a  determined  man  might  carve  out  a 
career  for  himself  with  his  sword.  Staring  at  the 
map  of  Middle  America,  his  finger  again  and  again 
paused,  as  though  by  instinct,  on  Nicaragua. 
Here  was  indeed  a  fertile  field  for  the  filibuster. 
Not  only  was  the  country  enormously  rich  in 
every  form  of  natural  resources,  but  it  had  a 
kindly  and  moderately  healthy  climate,  and,  what 
was  the  most  important  of  all,  owing  to  its  peculiar 
geographical  position,  it  commanded  what  was  at 
that  time  one  of  the  great  trade-routes  of  the 
world.  At  this  time  there  were  three  routes  to 
the  Californian  gold-fields :  one,  the  long  and  weary 
voyage  around  the  Horn;  another,  by  the  danger 
ous  and  costly  Overland  Trail;  and  the  third, 
which  was  the  shortest,  cheapest,  and  most  pop 
ular,  across  Nicaragua.  If  you  will  glance  at  the 
map,  you  will  see  that,  barring  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  which  is  several  hundred  miles  farther 
south,  Nicaragua  is  the  narrowest  neck  of  land 
between  the  two  great  oceans,  and  that  in  the 
middle  of  this  neck  is  the  great  Lake  Nicaragua, 

191 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

which  is  upward  of  fifty  miles  in  width.  An  Amer 
ican  corporation  known  as  the  Accessory  Transit 
Company,  of  which  the  first  Cornelius  Vander- 
bilt  was  president,  had  obtained  a  concession  from 
the  Nicaraguan  Government  to  transport  pas 
sengers  across  Central  America  by  this  route.  Pas 
sengers  en  route  from  New  York  or  New  Orleans 
to  the  gold-fields  were  landed  by  the  company's 
steamers  at  Greytown,  on  the  Atlantic  coast 
of  Nicaragua,  and  transported  thence  by  light- 
draught  steamers  up  the  San  Juan  River  to  Lake 
Nicaragua.  Here  they  were  transferred  to  larger 
steamers  and  taken  across  the  lake  to  Virgin  Bay, 
the  twelve-mile  journey  from  there  to  the  port  of 
San  Juan  del  Sur,  on  the  Pacific  coast  of  Nicaragua, 
being  performed  in  carriages  or  on  the  backs  of 
mules.  During  a  single  year  twenty-five  thou 
sand  passengers  crossed  Nicaragua  by  this  route. 
It  did  not  take  Walker  long  to  appreciate,  there 
fore,  that  the  man  who  succeeded  in  making  him 
self  master  of  this,  the  shortest  route  to  California, 
would  be  in  a  position  of  considerable  strength. 
Not  only  this,  but  Nicaragua  was  torn  by  internal 
dissensions;  the  army  was  divided  into  a  dozen 
factions;  the  peasantry  were  down-trodden  and 
poverty-stricken;  the  government  was  inconceiv 
ably  corrupt;  and  the  usual  revolution  was,  of 
.  '  192 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

course,  in  progress,  in  which  the  sister  republics 
of  Honduras  and  Costa  Rica  were  preparing  to 
take  a  hand.  Everything  considered,  Nicaragua's 
only  hope  of  salvation  from  anarchy  lay  in  find 
ing  for  a  ruler  a  man  with  an  inflexible  sense  of 
justice  and  an  iron  hand.  Walker  determined  to 
be  that  man. 

In  view  of  what  I  have  already  told  of  his  ex 
ploits,  you  have  doubtless  pictured  Walker  as  a 
tall,  broad-shouldered  man  of  commanding  pres 
ence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  nothing  of  the 
sort.  In  height  he  was  but  five  feet  five  inches, 
and  correspondingly  slender.  A  remarkably  square 
jaw  and  a  long  chin  lent  strength  and  determina 
tion  to  features  which  were  plain  almost  to  the 
point  of  coarseness.  His  eyes,  which  were  of  a 
singularly  light  gray,  are  universally  spoken  of  as 
having  been  his  most  noticeable  feature,  for  they 
were  so  large  and  fixed  that  the  eyelids  scarcely 
showed,  and  so  penetrating  that  they  seemed  to 
bore  holes  into  the  person  at  whom  they  were 
looking.  He  was  extremely  taciturn,  and  when  he 
did  speak  it  was  briefly  and  to  the  point.  He  had 
an  unusual  command  of  English,  however,  and 
his  words  were  always  carefully  chosen.  A 
stranger  to  fear,  men  who  followed  him  on  his 
campaigns  assert  that  even  under  the  most  trying 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

and  perilous  circumstances  they  had  never  seen 
him  change  countenance  or  betray  emotion  by  so 
much  as  the  contraction  of  a  muscle.  He  was 
wholly  lacking  in  personal  vanity,  and  when  in 
the  field  wore  his  trousers  tucked  into  his  boots,  a 
flannel  shirt  open  at  the  neck,  and  a  faded  black 
campaign  hat.  In  a  land  where  all  three  habits 
were  universal,  he  neither  drank,  smoked,  nor 
swore;  he  never  looked  at  women;  his  word,  once 
given,  was  never  broken;  the  justice  he  meted 
out  to  disobedient  followers,  though  stern  to  the 
point  of  brutality,  was  absolutely  impartial. 
Highly  ambitious,  it  is  paying  but  the  barest  jus 
tice  to  his  memory  to  say  that  his  aspirations, 
however  little  we  may  sympathize  with  them, 
were  wholly  political  and  never  mercenary,  his 
whole  career  showing  him  to  be  utterly  careless 
of  wealth.  Taking  everything  into  consideration, 
we  have  good  reason  to  be  proud  that  William 
Walker  was  an  American. 

In  1854,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  Nicaragua 
was  split  asunder  by  civil  war.  The  opposing 
parties  were  the  Legitimists  and  the  Democrats. 
What  they  were  fighting  about  is  of  no  conse 
quence;  perhaps  they  did  not  know  themselves. 
In  any  event,  in  August  of  that  year  an  American 
named  Byron  Cole,  acting  as  an  agent  for  Walker, 

194 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

arrived  at  the  headquarters  of  the  Democratic 
forces  with  a  novel  offer.  Briefly,  he  agreed  to 
contract  to  supply  the  Democratic  party  with 
three  hundred  American  "colonists  liable  to  mil 
itary  duty,"  these  settlers  to  receive  a  grant  of 
fifty-two  thousand  acres  of  land,  and  to  have  the 
privilege  of  becoming  citizens  of  Nicaragua.  This 
contract  was  approved  and  signed  by  General 
Castillon,  the  Democratic  leader,  and  with  it  in 
his  pocket  Cole  hastened  to  San  Francisco  and 
Walker.  After  taking  the  precaution  of  submit 
ting  the  contract  to  the  civil  and  military  authori 
ties  in  San  Francisco,  and  receiving  their  assur 
ances  that  it  did  not  violate  the  neutrality  laws  of 
the  United  States,  Walker  immediately  set  about 
recruiting  his  "colonists,"  and  in  May,  1855,  just 
a  year  after  his  escape  from  Mexico,  he  was  ready 
to  sail.  Although,  as  I  have  said,  the  Federal 
authorities  had  passed  upon  the  legality  of  the 
contract,  it  was  a  noticeable  fact  that  the  peace 
able  settlers  took  with  them  Winchester  rifles  in 
stead  of  spades,  and  Colt's  revolvers  instead  of 
hoes,  and  that  the  hold  of  the  brig  Festa,  on  which 
they  sailed  from  San  Francisco,  was  filled  with 
ammunition  and  machine  guns  instead  of  agricul 
tural  implements  and  machinery. 

After   a   long   and   stormy   voyage   down    the 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Pacific  coast  Walker  and  his  men  landed,  on 
June  16,  at  the  port  of  Realejo,  in  Nicaragua, 
where  he  was  met  by  Castillon.  Walker  was  at 
once  commissioned  a  colonel;  Achilles  Kewen,  who 
had  just  come  from  Cuba,  where  he  had  been 
fighting  under  the  patriot  Lopez,  a  lieutenant- 
colonel;  and  Timothy  Crocker,  a  fighting  Irish 
man,  who  was  a  veteran  of  Walker's  Sonora  expe 
dition,  a  major;  the  corps  being  organized  as  an 
independent  command  under  the  name  of  La 
Falange  Americana — the  American  Phalanx.  At 
this  time  the  Transit  route  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  was  held  by  the  Legitimist  forces,  and 
these  Walker  was  ordered  to  dislodge,  it  be 
ing  essential  to  the  success  of  the  Democrats  that 
they  gain  possession  of  this  interoceanic  highway. 
Accordingly,  a  week  after  setting  foot  in  Nica 
ragua,  Walker,  at  the  head  of  fifty-seven  of  his 
Americans  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  native  sol 
diers,  set  out  for  Rivas,  a  town  on  the  western 
shore  of  Lake  Nicaragua  held  by  twelve  hundred 
of  the  enemy.  The  first  battle  of  his  Nicaraguan 
campaign  ended  in  the  most  complete  disaster. 
At  the  first  volley  his  native  allies  bolted,  leaving 
the  Americans  surrounded  by  ten  times  their 
number  of  Legitimists.  The  enemy  instantly 
perceived  this  defection,  and  pressed  the  Phalanx 

196 


CQ 

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> 


i5  *° 
"*  £ 
2  ^ 


c  g    & 

<u  « 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

so  hard  that  its  members  were  driven  to  take 
shelter  behind  a  row  of  adobe  huts.  No  one  knew 
better  than  Walker  that  if  the  enemy  charged  he 
and  his  men  were  done  for,  so  he  decided  to  do  the 
charging  himself.  Out  from  behind  the  huts 
dashed  the  red-shirted  filibusters,  firing  as  they 
came,  and  so  ferocious  was  their  onslaught  that 
they  succeeded  in  cutting  their  way  through  the 
encircling  army  and  escaping  into  the  jungle. 
Though  six  of  the  Americans  were  killed,  inclu 
ding  Walker's  two  lieutenants,  Kewen  and  Crocker, 
and  twice  as  many  wounded,  the  battle  of  Rivas 
established  the  reputation  of  Americans  in  Cen 
tral  America  for  years  to  come,  for  a  hundred  and 
fifty  of  the  enemy  fell  before  their  deadly  fire. 

Bleeding  and  exhausted  from  battle  and  travel, 
Walker  and  his  men,  after  an  all-night  march 
through  the  jungle,  limped  into  the  port  of  San 
Juan  del  Sur,  and,  finding  a  Costa  Rican  vessel  in 
the  harbor,  they  seized  it  for  their  own  use.  Still 
bearing  in  mind  the  necessity  of  getting  control 
of  the  Transit  route,  Walker  gave  his  men  only  a 
few  days  in  which  to  recover  from  their  wounds 
and  weariness,  and  then  was  off  again,  this  time 
for  Virgin  Bay,  the  halting-place  for  passengers 
going  east  or  west.  Though  in  the  fight  which 
ensued  Walker  was  outnumbered  five  to  one,  his 

197 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

losses  were  only  three  natives  killed  and  a  few 
Americans  wounded,  while  one  hundred  and  fifty 
of  the  enemy  fell  before  the  rifles  of  the  filibusters. 
This  disparity  of  losses  emphasizes,  as  does  noth 
ing  else,  the  deadliness  of  the  American  fire. 

After  the  fight  at  Virgin  Bay  Walker  received 
from  California  fifty  recruits,  thus  bringing  the 
force  under  his  command  up  to  some  four  hun 
dred  men,  about  a  third  of  whom  were  Americans. 
The  Legitimists,  learning  that  he  was  planning  to 
again  attack  Rivas,  hastened  to  reinforce  the  gar 
rison  of  that  town  by  hurrying  troops  there  from 
their  headquarters  at  Granada,  which  was  farther 
up  the  lake,  planning  to  give  Walker  a  warm  and 
unexpected  reception.  But  it  was  Walker  who  did 
the  surprising,  for,  having  his  own  channels  of 
secret  information,  he  no  sooner  learned  of  the 
weakened  condition  of  Granada  than  he  deter 
mined  to  direct  his  efforts  against  that  place, 
instead  of  Rivas,  and  by  capturing  it  to  give  the 
Legitimist  cause  a  solar-plexus  blow.  Embarking 
his  men  on  a  small  steamer  with  the  announced 
intention  of  attacking  Rivas,  as  soon  as  night 
fell  he  turned  in  the  opposite  direction  and,  with 
lights  out  and  fires  banked,  steamed  silently  up  the 
lake.  Dawn  found  him  off  Granada,  the  garrison 
and  inhabitants  of  which  were  sleeping  off  a 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

drunken  debauch  with  which  they  had  celebrated 
a  recent  victory.  Even  the  sentries  drowsed  at 
their  posts.  Unobserved,  the  Americans  landed 
in  the  semi-darkness  of  the  early  dawn,  and  it 
was  not  until  they  had  reached  the  very  outskirts 
of  the  town  that  a  sentry  suddenly  awakened  to 
their  presence  and  gave  the  alarm  by  letting  off 
his  rifle,  the  shot  being  instantly  answered  by  a 
crackle  of  musketry  as  the  Americans  opened  fire. 
''Charge!"  shouted  Walker,  "Get  at  'em!  Get  at 
em!  "and  dashed  forward  at  a  run,  a  revolver  in 
each  hand,  with  his  followers,  cheering  like  madmen, 
close  at  his  heels.  "Los  Filibusteros!  Los  Filibus- 
teros!"  screamed  the  terror-stricken  inhabitants, 
catching  sight  of  the  red  shirts  and  scarlet  hat-bands 
of  the  Americans.  "  Run  for  your  lives ! "  The  de 
moralized  garrison  made  a  brief  and  ineffective 
stand  in  the  Plaza,  and  then  threw  down  their  arms. 
Walker  was  master  of  Granada.  He  at  once  in 
stituted  a  military  government,  released  over  a 
hundred  political  prisoners  confined  in  the  local 
jail,  policed  the  town  as  effectually  as  though  it 
were  a  New  England  village,  and  when  he  caught 
one  of  his  native  soldiers  in  the  act  of  looting,  ran 
him  through  with  his  sword. 

Walker  was  now  in  a  position  to  dictate  his  own 
terms  of  peace,  and,  four  months  after  he  and  his 

199 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

fifty-seven  followers  landed  in  Nicaragua,  an 
armistice  was  arranged  and  the  side  to  which  the 
Americans  had  lent  their  aid  was  in  power.  A 
native  named  Rivas  was  made  provisional  presi 
dent,  and  Walker  was  appointed  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  which  at  that  time  numbered 
about  twelve  hundred  men.  Though  insignificant 
in  numbers  when  judged  by  European  standards, 
this  was  really  a  remarkable  force,  and  perhaps 
the  most  effective  for  its  size  known  to  military 
history.  The  officers  had  all  seen  service  under 
many  flags  and  in  many  lands — in  Cuba,  Mexico, 
Brazil,  Spain,  Algeria,  Italy,  Egypt,  Russia,  India, 
China — and  the  men,  nearly  all  of  whom  had  been 
recruited  in  San  Francisco,  boasted  that  "Cali 
fornia  was  the  pick  of  the  world,  and  they  were 
the  pick  of  California."  There  was  scarcely  a 
man  among  them  who  could  not  flick  the  ashes 
from  a  cigar  with  his  revolver  at  a  hundred  feet, 
or  with  his  rifle  hit  a  dollar  held  between  a  man's 
thumb  and  forefinger  at  a  hundred  yards.  All 
the  strange,  wild  natures  for  whom  even  the  mi 
ning-camps  of  California  had  grown  too  tame 
were  drawn  to  Walker's  flag  as  iron  filings  are 
drawn  to  a  magnet.  Frederick  Townsend  Ward, 
the  New  England  youth  who  raised,  trained,  and 
led  the  Ever- Victorious  Army,  who  rose  to  be  an 

200 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

admiral-general  of  China,  and  who  performed  the 
astounding  exploits  for  which  General  Charles 
Gordon  received  the  credit,  gained  much  of  his 
military  training  under  Walker;  Joaquin  Miller, 
"the  poet  of  the  Sierras,"  was  another  of  his  de 
voted  followers,  while  scores  of  the  other  men  who 
fought  under  the  blue-and-white  banner  with  the 
scarlet  star  in  later  years  achieved  name  and  fame 
in  many  different  lands. 

Says  General  Charles  Frederic  Henningsen, 
the  famous  English  soldier  of  fortune  who  was 
Walker's  second  in  command:  "I  have  heard  two 
greasy  privates  disputing  over  the  correct  reading 
and  comparative  merits  of  ^Eschylus  and  Euripides. 
I  have  seen  a  soldier  on  guard  incessantly  scrib 
bling  strips  of  paper,  which  turned  out  to  be  a 
finely  versified  translation  of  his  dog's-eared  copy 
of  the  Divina  Commedia"  The  same  officer,  who 
had  fought  with  distinction  under  Don  Carlos  in 
Spain,  under  Schamyl  in  the  Caucasus,  and 
under  Kossuth  in  Hungary,  who  had  introduced 
the  Minie  rifle  into  the  American  service,  and 
was  a  recognized  authority  on  the  use  of  artil 
lery,  and  therefore  knew  whereof  he  spoke,  also 
testifies  to  the  heroism  and  astounding  fortitude 
of  Walker's  men.  "  I  have  often  seen  them  march 
ing  with  a  broken  or  a  compound-fractured  arm  in 

201 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

splints,  and  using  the  other  to  fire  the  rifle  or  re 
volver.  Those  with  a  fractured  thigh,  or  with 
wounds  which  rendered  them  incapable  of  re 
moval,  often  (or  rather,  in  early  times,  always) 
shot  themselves,  sooner  than  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  Such  men  do  not  turn  up  in  the 
average  of  every-day  life,  nor  do  I  ever  expect  to 
see  their  like  again.  I  was  on  the  Confederate 
side  in  many  of  the  bloodiest  battles  of  the  late 
war,  but  I  aver  that  if,  at  the  end  of  that  war  I 
had  been  allowed  to  pick  five  thousand  of  the 
bravest  Confederate  or  Federal  soldiers  I  ever  saw, 
and  could  resurrect  and  pit  against  them  one  thou 
sand  of  such  men  as  lie  beneath  the  orange-trees 
of  Nicaragua,  I  feel  certain  that  the  thousand 
would  have  scattered  and  utterly  routed  the  five 
thousand  within  an  hour.  All  military  science 
failed,  on  a  suddenly  given  field,  before  assailants 
who  came  on  at  a  run,  to  close  with  their  revolvers, 
and  who  thought  little  of  charging  a  battery, 
pistol  in  hand."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  the  first 
battle  of  Rivas,  ten  Americans,  all  officers  of  the 
Phalanx,  armed  only  with  bowie-knives  and  re 
volvers,  actually  did  charge  and  capture  a  battery 
manned  by  more  than  a  hundred  Costa  Ricans, 
half  of  the  little  band  being  killed  in  that  astound 
ing  exploit.  Some  estimate  of  the  deeds  of  these 

202 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

unsung  heroes,  so  many  of  whom  lie  in  unmarked 
graves  beneath  an  alien  sky,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  surgical  reports,  which  showed  that  the 
proportion  of  wounds  treated  was  one  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  to  every  hundred  men. 

For  several  months  after  the  taking  of  Granada 
and  the  establishment  of  a  provisional  govern 
ment,  the  dove  of  peace  hovered  over  Nicaragua 
as  though  desirous  of  alighting,  but  in  February, 
1856,  it  was  driven  away,  at  least  for  a  time,  by 
a  fresh  splutter  of  musketry  along  the  southern 
frontier,  where  Costa  Rica,  alarmed  by  Walker's 
reputed  ambition  to  make  himself  master  of  all 
Middle  America,  had  begun  an  invasion  with  the 
expressed  purpose  of  driving  the  gringos  from 
Central  American  soil.  After  a  few  months  of 
desperate  fighting,  in  which  the  Americans  fully 
maintained  their  reputation  for  reckless  bravery, 
the  Costa  Ricans  were  driven  across  the  border, 
and  for  a  brief  time  the  harassed  Nicaraguans 
were  able  to  exchange  their  rifles  for  their  hoes. 
The  country  now  being  for  the  moment  at  peace, 
Rivas  called  a  presidential  election,  announcing 
himself  as  the  candidate  of  the  Democrats.  The 
Legitimists,  recognizing  in  Walker  the  one  strong 
man  of  the  country,  had  the  political  shrewdness 
to  choose  him,  their  former  enemy,  to  head  their 

203 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ticket.  Two  other  candidates,  Ferrer  and  Salazar, 
were  also  in  the  field.  The  election  was  regular 
in  every  respect,  the  voting  being  entirely  free 
from  the  usual  disturbances.  According  to  the 
Nicaraguan  constitution,  every  male  inhabitant 
over  eighteen  years  of  age,  criminals  excepted,  is 
entitled  to  the  suffrage.  When  the  votes  were 
counted  it  was  found  that  Rivas  had  received  867 
votes;  Salazar,  2,087;  Ferrer,  4,447;  and  Walker, 
15,835.  By  such  an  overwhelming  majority,  and 
in  an  absolutely  fair  election,  was  William  Walker 
made  President  of  Nicaragua — the  first  and  only 
time  an  American  has  ever  been  chosen  ruler  of  a 
foreign  and  independent  state. 

In  all  its  troubled  history  Nicaragua  has  never 
been  governed  so  justly  and  so  wisely  as  it  was  by 
the  American  soldier  of  fortune.  Had  he  been 
free  from  foreign  interference  there  is  little  doubt 
that  he  would  have  made  Nicaragua  a  progressive, 
prosperous,  and  contented  country,  and  that  he 
would  in  time  have  brought  under  one  govern 
ment  and  one  flag  all  the  states  lying  between 
Yucatan  and  Panama.  But  that  was  precisely 
what  the  peoples  of  those  states  were  fearful  of, 
so  that,  a  few  weeks  after  Walker  was  inaugu 
rated,  Guatemala,  Costa  Rica,  Honduras,  and  San 
Salvador  declared  war.  This  time  Walker  took 

204 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

the  field  with  three  thousand  trained  and  seasoned 
veterans,  while  opposed  to  him  were  twenty-one 
thousand  of  the  allies.  To  describe  the  campaign 
that  ensued  would  be  as  profitless  as  it  would  be 
tedious.  The  programme  was  always  the  same: 
the  march  by  night  through  the  silent,  steaming 
jungle,  and  the  stealthy  surrounding  of  the  threat 
ened  town  in  the  early  dawn;  the  warning  crack 
of  a  startled  sentry's  rifle;  the  sudden  rush  of  the 
filibusters  with  their  high,  shrill  yell;  the  taking 
of  the  barracks  and  the  cathedral  in  the  Plaza, 
nearly  always  at  the  pistol's  point;  and  the  panic- 
stricken  retreat  of  the  little  brown  men  in  their 
uniforms  of  soiled  white  linen.  Everywhere  the 
arms  of  Walker  were  triumphant,  and  had  he  not 
at  this  time  deliberately  crossed  the  path  of  a 
soldier  of  fortune  of  quite  another  kind,  in  a  few 
months  more  he  would  have  realized  his  life-dream 
and  have  made  himself  the  ruler  of  a  Central 
American  empire. 

Upon  investigating  national  affairs  after  his 
election,  Walker  found  that  the  Accessory  Transit 
Company  had  not  lived  up  to  the  terms  of  its  con 
cession  from  the  government  of  Nicaragua.  By 
the  terms  of  its  charter  it  had  agreed  to  pay  to  the 
Nicaraguan  Government  ten  thousand  dollars  an 
nually,  and  ten  per  cent  of  its  net  profits.  The 

205 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

company  claimed,  and  the  government  as  stoutly 
denied,  that  the  ten  thousand  dollars  had  been 
regularly  paid,  though  the  concessionaires  ad 
mitted  that  the  ten  per  cent  on  the  profits  had 
not  been  paid,  giving  as  their  excuse  that  there 
had  been  no  profits.  Upon  an  examination  of  the 
books  it  was  quickly  discovered  that  the  company 
had  so  juggled  with  the  accounts  as  to  make  it  ap 
pear  that  there  were  no  profits,  when,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  enterprise  was  an  enormously  profitable 
one.  Upon  discovering  the  fraud  which  had  been 
perpetrated  upon  the  government  and  people  of 
Nicaragua,  Walker  demanded  back  payments  to 
the  amount  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  and  upon  the  company  insolently  refusing 
to  pay  them,  he  promptly  revoked  its  charter, 
and  seized  its  steamboats,  wharves,  and  ware 
houses  as  security  for  the  debt.  Though  this 
action  was  perfectly  justifiable  under  the  circum 
stances,  it  was,  in  view  of  the  instability  of  Walk 
er's  position,  an  unwise  move,  for  it  made  an 
implacable  enemy  of  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  perhaps  the  most  unscrupulous  of  the  finan 
ciers  of  the  time. 

Cornelius  Vanderbilt  was  not  a  person  who 
could  be  bluffed  or  frightened.  Infuriated  at  the 
action  of  the  filibuster  President,  he  immediately 

206 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

withdrew  from  service  the  ships  of  the  Transit 
Company  in  both  oceans,  thus  cutting  off  commu 
nication  between  Nicaragua  and  the  United  States, 
and  thereby  Walker's  source  of  supplies.  But  the 
grim  old  financier  was  not  content  with  that.  Re 
cruiting  a  force  of  foreign  adventurers  on  his  own 
account,  he  despatched  them  to  Central  America 
with  orders  to  assist  the  Costa  Ricans,  whom  he 
liberally  supplied  with  money,  arms,  and  ammuni 
tion,  in  their  war  against  Walker.  Turning  then 
to  Washington,  he  had  little  difficulty  in  inducing 
Secretary  of  State  Marcy,  who  was  known  to  be 
one  of  his  creatures,  to  use  the  government  forces 
in  driving  Walker  out  of  Nicaragua.  To  Com 
modore  Mervin,  who  was  his  personal  friend, 
Secretary  Marcy  communicated  his  wishes,  or 
rather  Vanderbilt's  wishes,  and  these  Mervin  in 
turn  transmitted  to  Captain  Davis,  commanding 
the  man-of-war  St.  Mary  V,  who  was  ordered  to 
proceed  at  full  speed  to  San  Juan  del  Sur,  on  the 
Pacific  coast  of  Nicaragua,  and  to  force  Walker 
out  of  that  country.  Never  has  the  government 
of  the  United  States  lent  itself  to  the  designs  of 
predatory  wealth  so  disgracefully  and  so  flagrantly 
as  it  did  when,  at  the  dictation  of  Cornelius  Van- 
derbilt,  and  without  a  shadow  of  right  or  excuse, 
it  used  the  American  navy  to  oust  William  Walker 

207 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

from  the  presidency  to  which  he  had  been  legally 
elected  by  a  sovereign  people.  Its  unjustified 
persecution  of  Walker  to  serve  the  spite  of  a 
money-lord  forms  one  of  the  darkest  stains  on 
our  national  history. 

When  Davis  arrived  in  Nicaragua  he  found 
Walker,  his  forces  terribly  reduced  by  death,  fever, 
and  desertion  (for  his  means  of  supply  had,  as  I 
have  said,  been  stopped),  besieged  by  the  allies  in 
the  town  of  Rivas.  Food  was  running  short,  the 
hospital  was  filled  with  wounded,  and  many  of 
his  men  were  helpless  from  fever.  Captain  Davis 
demanded  that  Walker  surrender  to  him  upon  the 
ground  of  humanity,  but  the  indomitable  filibuster 
replied  that  when  he  did  not  have  enough  men 
left  to  man  the  guns  he  intended  to  take  refuge 
on  board  his  little  schooner,  the  Granaday  which 
lay  in  the  harbor,  and  seek  his  fortune  elsewhere. 
"You  will  not  do  that,"  answered  Davis,  "for 
I  am  going  to  seize  your  vessel."  With  his 
only  hope  of  escape  thus  cut  off,  there  was 
nothing  for  Walker  to  do  but  capitulate.  There 
fore,  on  May  I,  1857,  William  Walker,  President 
of  Nicaragua,  whose  title  was  as  legally  sound  as 
that  of  any  ruler  in  the  world,  surrendered  to  the 
forces  his  own  country  had  sent  against  him,  and 
one  more  argument  was  given  to  those  who  claimed 

208 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

that  it  was  not  liberty  which  we  upheld  and  wor 
shipped,  but  the  almighty  dollar.  When  Walker 
arrived  in  New  York  a  few  weeks  later  he  found 
the  city  bedecked  with  flags  and  bunting  in  his 
honor.  On  but  two  other  occasions  has  the 
American  metropolis  given  such  a  reception  to  a 
visitor:  once  when  Kossuth,  the  Hungarian  pa 
triot,  rode  up  Broadway,  and  years  later,  when 
Dewey  returned,  fresh  from  his  victory  at  Manila. 
Walker's  drive  from  the  Battery  to  Madison  Square 
was  like  a  triumphal  progress,  for  his  gallantry  in 
action  and  his  successes  against  overwhelming 
odds  had  aroused  the  admiration  of  his  country 
men,  just  as  his  outrageous  treatment  by  the  gov 
ernment  had  excited  their  indignation.  Though 
legally  he  had  serious  grounds  for  complaint,  he 
received  scant  consideration  when  he  placed  his 
demands  for  reparation  before  the  Department 
of  State  at  Washington.  But  the  cold  shoulder 
turned  toward  him  by  official  Washington  was 
more  than  made  up  for  by  the  welcome  he  re 
ceived  in  the  South,  where  he  was  acclaimed  as  a 
hero  and  a  martyr.  He  was  banqueted  in  every 
town  and  city  from  Baltimore  to  New  Orleans, 
and  when  he  entered  a  box  in  the  opera-house  of 
the  latter  place,  the  audience,  forgetting  the  play, 
rose  as  one  man  to  cheer  him. 

209 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Within  a  month  Walker  had  raised  enough 
money  and  recruits  in  the  South  to  enable  him  to 
try  his  fortunes  once  more  in  Nicaragua.  Sailing 
from  New  Orleans  with  one  hundred  and  fifty 
men,  he  landed  at  San  Juan  del  Norte,  on  the  Car 
ibbean  side,  marched  upon  and  captured  the 
town  of  Castillo  Viejo  together  with  four  of  the 
Transit  Company's  steamers,  and  was,  indeed,  in 
a  fair  way  to  again  make  himself  master  of  Nica 
ragua  when  the  United  States  once  more  inter 
fered,  the  frigate  Wabash,  under  command  of 
Commodore  Hiram  Pawlding,  dropping  anchor  in 
a  position  where  her  guns  commanded  the  fili 
busters'  camp,  her  commander  demanding  Walk 
er's  immediate  surrender.  The  flag-officer  who 
presented  Walker  with  Pawlding's  demand  tact 
lessly  remarked:  "General,  I'm  sorry  to  see  you 
here.  A  man  like  you  deserves  to  command  bet 
ter  men."  "If  I  had  even  a  third  of  the  force  you 
have  brought  against  me,"  Walker  responded 
grimly,  "I'd  soon  show  you  who  commands  the 
better  men."  For  the  third  time  in  his  career 
Walker  was  forced  to  surrender  to  his  own  coun 
trymen,  and  was  sent  north  under  parole  as  a 
prisoner  of  war.  But,  although  Pawlding  had 
acted  precisely  as  Davis  had  done,  President 
Buchanan,  instead  of  thanking  him,  not  only  pub- 

210 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

licly  reprimanded  him,  but  retired  him  from 
active  service,  and  when  Walker  presented  him 
self  at  the  White  House  as  a  prisoner,  refused  to 
receive  his  surrender,  or  to  recognize  him  as  being 
in  the  custody  of  the  United  States.  All  of  which, 
however,  was  scant  consolation  for  Walker. 

To  regain  the  presidency  of  which  he  had  been 
unjustly  deprived  had  now  become  an  obsession 
with  Walker.  In  spite  of  a  proclamation  issued 
by  President  Buchanan  forbidding  him  to  take 
further  part  in  Central  American  affairs,  he 
sailed  from  Mobile,  on  December  i,  1858,  with  a 
hundred  and  fifty  of  his  veterans.  His  voyage 
was  brought  to  a  sudden  and  wholly  unlooked-for 
termination,  however,  for  he  was  wrecked  in  a 
gale  off  the  coast  of  Honduras,  whence  he  was 
rescued  by  a  British  war-ship  which  happened  to 
be  in  the  vicinity  and  brought  back  to  the  United 
States.  By  this  time  Walker  had  become  almost 
as  much  of  a  nightmare  to  the  governments  of  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  (for  the  latter, 
both  because  of  the  proximity  of  her  colony  of 
British  Honduras  and  of  her  large  financial  inter 
ests  in  the  other  Central  American  countries,  had 
no  desire  to  see  that  region  again  plunged  into 
war)  as  Napoleon  was  to  the  Holy  Alliance,  and 
as  a  result  both  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts 

211 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

of  Nicaragua  were  patrolled  by  the  war-ships  of 
the  two  nations  to  prevent  Walker's  return.  Ap 
preciating  that,  under  the  circumstances,  it  was 
about  as  easy  for  him  to  land  on  Nicaraguan  soil 
as  it  was  to  land  on  the  moon,  Walker,  with 
a  hundred  of  his  devoted  followers,  slipped  silently 
out  of  Mobile  harbor  on  an  August  night  in  1860, 
and  landed,  a  few  days  later,  on  a  little  island  off 
the  coast  of  Honduras  known  as  Ruatan. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  last  chapter  in  this  ex 
traordinary  man's  extraordinary  career.  Within 
a  day  after  his  landing  at  Ruatan,  Walker  had 
crossed  to  the  mainland  and  captured  the  im 
portant  seaport  of  Trujillo.  But  the  ill-fortune 
which  from  the  beginning  had  dogged  him  like 
a  shadow  was  not  to  desert  him  now,  for  scarcely 
had  the  flag  of  Honduras  which  fluttered  above  the 
barracks  been  replaced  by  the  blue-and-white 
banner  of  the  filibusters  when  a  British  frigate 
dropped  anchor  off  the  town.  Twenty  minutes 
later  a  boat's  crew  of  British  bluejackets  tossed 
their  oars  as  they  ran  alongside  Trujillo  wharf, 
and  a  naval  officer  immaculate  in  white  and 
gold,  stepping  ashore,  inquired  for  General  Walk 
er,  and  presented  him  with  a  message.  It  was 
from  Captain  Salmon,  commanding  the  British 
man-of-war  Icarus,  which  lay  outside,  and  de- 

212 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

manded  the  immediate  evacuation  of  the  city  by 
the  filibusters,  as  the  British  Government  held  a 
mortgage  on  the  revenues  of  the  port  and  intended 
to  protect  them,  by  force  if  necessary.  Walker 
answered  that  as  he  had  made  Trujillo  a  free  port, 
the  British  claims  were  no  longer  valid.  "Cap 
tain  Salmon  instructs  me  to  inform  you,  sir," 
replied  the  British  officer,  as  he  prepared  to  re- 
enter  his  gig,  "that  he  will  give  you  until  to 
morrow  morning  to  make  your  decision.  If  you 
do  not  then  surrender  he  will  be  compelled  to 
bombard  the  town."  As  a  strong  force  of  Hondu- 
rans  had  in  the  mean  time  appeared  on  the  land 
side  of  the  city  and  were  preparing  to  attack, 
Walker  realized  that  his  position  had  become  un 
tenable,  so  that  night  he  and  his  men  slipped 
silently  out  of  the  sleeping  city  and  started  down 
the  coast  with  the  intention  of  making  their  way 
overland  to  Nicaragua.  When  the  British  landed 
the  next  morning  they  were  only  just  in  time  to 
prevent  the  sick  and  wounded  whom  Walker  had 
been  forced  to  leave  behind  him  in  his  retreat  from 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  ferocious  Hondu- 
rans.  Learning  of  Walker's  flight,  Salmon  imme 
diately  started  down  the  coast  on  the  Icarus  in 
pursuit. 

They  overtook  Walker  at  a  little  fishing  village 
213 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

near  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Negro,  several  boat 
loads  of  sailors  and  marines  being  sent  up  the 
river  to  take  him.  But  the  coast  of  Honduras  is 
a  good  second  to  the  Gold  Coast  in  the  deadliness 
of  its  climate,  so  that  when  the  landing  party 
reached  the  little  cluster  of  wretched  hovels  where 
Walker  and  his  men  had  taken  refuge,  they  found 
the  filibusters  too  far  gone  with  fever  to  oppose 
them.  To  Captain  Salmon's  demand  for  an  uncon 
ditional  surrender,  Walker,  who  was  so  weak  that 
he  could  scarcely  stand,  inquired  if  he  was  sur 
rendering  to  the  English  or  to  the  Hondurans. 
Captain  Salmon  twice  assured  him  distinctly  that 
it  was  to  the  English,  whereupon  the  filibusters, 
at  Walker's  orders,  laid  down  their  arms  and  were 
taken  aboard  the  Icarus.  No  sooner  had  he  ar 
rived  back  at  Trujillo,  however,  than  Captain 
Salmon,  breaking  the  word  he  had  given  as  an 
officer  and  a  gentleman,  and  in  defiance  of  every 
law  of  humanity,  turned  his  prisoners  over  to  the 
Honduran  authorities.  Salmon,  who  was  young 
and  pompous  and  had  a  life-size  opinion  of  him 
self  and  his  position,  interceded  for  all  of  the 
prisoners  except  Walker,  and  obtained  their  re 
lease,  but  he  informed  the  filibuster  chieftain  that 
he  would  plead  for  him  only  on  condition  that 
he  would  ask  his  intercession  as  an  American 

214 


The  King  of  the  Filibusters 

citizen.  But  Walker,  imbittered  by  the  treat 
ment  he  had  received  at  the  hands  of  his  own 
government  and  disdaining  to  turn  to  it  for  as 
sistance  in  his  adversity,  answered  proudly:  "The 
President  of  Nicaragua  is  a  citizen  of  Nicaragua/' 
and  turned  his  back  upon  the  Englishman  who 
had  betrayed  him. 

He  was  tried  by  court  martial  on  September  u, 
1860,  and  after  the  barest  formalities  was  sen 
tenced  to  be  shot  at  daybreak  the  next  morning. 
The  place  selected  for  his  execution  was  a  strip 
of  sandy  beach,  and  to  it  the  condemned  man 
walked  as  coolly  as  though  taking  a  morning 
stroll.  Before  him  tramped  a  detachment  of 
slovenly  Honduran  infantry,  who,  with  their 
brown,  wizened  faces,  their  ill-fitting  uniforms, 
and  their  jaunty  caps,  looked  more  like  monkeys 
than  men;  behind  him  marched  the  firing-party, 
with  weapons  at  the  charge;  beside  him  was  a 
priest  bearing  a  crucifix  and  murmuring  the  prayers 
for  the  dying.  As  the  little  procession  came  to  a 
halt  within  the  hollow  square  of  soldiery,  Walker 
waved  away  the  handkerchief  with  which  they 
would  have  blindfolded  him,  and,  cool  and  straight 
and  soldierly  as  though  in  command  of  his 
Phalanx,  took  his  stand  before  the  firing-party. 

"I  die  a  Roman  Catholic,"  he  said  in  Spanish 

215 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

in  a  voice  clear  and  unafraid.  "The  war  which  I 
made  upon  you  was  wrong  and  I  take  this  opportu 
nity  of  asking  your  pardon.  I  die  with  resigna 
tion,  though  it  would  be  a  consolation  for  me  to  feel 
that  my  death  is  for  the  good  of  society."  As  he 
ceased  speaking,  the  officer  in  command  of  the 
troops  dropped  the  point  of  his  sword,  the  levelled 
rifles  of  the  firing-party  spoke  as  one,  and  Walker 
fell.  But,  though  every  bullet  entered  his  body, 
he  still  lived.  So  a  sergeant  stepped  forward  with 
a  cocked  revolver  and  blew  out  his  brains.  With 
that  shot  there  passed  the  soul  of  a  very  brave 
and  gallant  gentleman  who  deserved  from  his 
country  better  treatment  than  he  received. 


216 


CITIES  CAPTURED  BY  CONTRACT 


CITIES  CAPTURED  BY  CONTRACT 

I  HAVE  known  men  who,  from  need  of  money 
or  from  love  of  adventure,  have  contracted  to 
do  all  sorts  of  seemingly  impossible  things.  Some 
conquered  apparently  unconquerable  chasms  by 
means  of  daring  bridges;  others  built  railways 
across  waterless,  yellow  deserts,  where  experts  had 
asserted  that  no  railway  could  go;  one  contracted 
to  find  and  raise  a  treasure  galleon  sunk  three 
hundred  years  ago;  another  agreed  to  compose 
an  opera  in  a  week;  while  still  another  engaged 
to  find  a  man  who  for  two  years  had  been  lost  in 
equatorial  Africa.  It  took  a  New  Englander, 
however,  to  sign  a  contract  to  capture  walled  and 
hostile  cities,  at  a  stipulated  price  per  city,  just 
as  a  Chicago  meat-packer  would  contract  to  supply 
a  government  with  beef  at  so  much  a  pound. 

The  man  who  entered  into  this  amazing  agree 
ment  was  baptized  Frederick  Townsend  Ward, 
but  bore  at  his  death  the  adopted  name  of 
Hwa.  Though  born  within  biscuit-throw  of  Salem 
wharves  he  was  by  residence  a  citizen  of  the  world, 

219 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

and  by  profession  a  soldier  of  fortune.  Now  the 
trouble  with  most  soldiers  of  fortune  is  that  they 
don't  make  good  in  the  end.  They  are  generally  en 
tertaining  fellows,  with  vast  stores  of  information 
on  an  amazing  variety  of  subjects,  wide  acquaint 
anceships  with  personages  whose  names  you  see 
in  the  daily  papers,  and  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  little-known  places,  but  they  rarely  save 
any  money,  they  seldom  rise  to  high  positions, 
and  they  usually  end  their  checkered  careers  by 
being  ingloriously  arrested  for  breaking  the  neu 
trality  laws,  or  by  dying,  picturesquely  but  quite 
uselessly,  between  a  stone  wall  and  a  firing-party. 
That  Frederick  Ward  was  a  striking  exception 
merely  proves  the  soundness  of  my  remarks. 
Though  he  was  a  soldier  of  fortune  (he  fought 
under  at  least  six  flags)  he  did  make  money,  for 
he  capitalized  his  remarkable  military  genius  by 
signing  a  contract  to  capture  rebellious  cities,  at 
seventy-five  thousand  dollars  a  city,  and  took  a 
dozen  of  them,  one  after  another;  he  rose  to  be 
an  admiral-general  of  China,  and  a  Mandarin  of 
the  Red  Button,  which  was  equivalent  to  being  a 
Dewey,  a  Kitchener,  and  a  Cromer  rolled  into 
one;  and  though  he  died  when  scarcely  thirty,  it 
was  on  the  walls  of  a  captured  city,  directing  a 
victorious  charge.  Though  the  Manchu  dynasty 

220 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

of  China,  to  which  he  gave  an  additional  half- 
century  of  existence,  has  fallen,  the  soldiers  of  the 
new  republic  continue  to  invoke  his  spirit  as  that 
of  a  god  of  battles,  and  the  priests  of  Confucius 
still  burn  incense  before  his  tomb. 

The  story  of  how  this  adventurous  American 
youth  recognized  the  splendid  fighting  material 
into  which  the  Chinese  were  capable  of  being 
transformed;  how  he  took  that  material  and 
heated  and  hammered  and  tempered  it  into  a 
serviceable  weapon,  and  gave  that  weapon  a  keen 
cutting  edge;  how,  with  a  force  which  never  num 
bered  more  than  six  thousand  men,  he  broke  the 
backbone  of  a  rebellion  which  turned  China  into 
a  shambles;  and  how  his  battalions  came  to  be 
known,  in  the  annals  of  time,  as  the  "Ever-Vic 
torious  Army,"  forms  a  chronicle  of  courage  and 
thrilling  incident  the  like  of  which  can  not  be 
found  in  history.  If  the  almost  incredible  ex 
ploits  of  Ward  have  escaped  the  notice  of  our  his 
torians,  it  is  because,  at  the  time  they  took  place, 
Americans  were  too  intent  on  the  business  of  their 
own  great  slaughter-house  to  be  interested  in  a 
similar  performance  going  on,  in  much  less  work 
manlike  fashion,  half  the  world  away.  Though 
British  writers  slightingly  allude  to  Ward  as  "an 
obscure  Yankee  adventurer,"  the  officer  who  suc- 

221 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ceeded  him,  General  Charles  George  Gordon, 
merely  completed  the  work  which  his  predecessor 
had  begun,  and  built  his  military  reputation  on 
the  foundations  which  the  American  had  laid. 
Though  the  name  of  Frederick  Townsend  Ward 
holds  but  little  meaning  for  the  vast  majority  of 
his  countrymen,  it  is  still  a  name  to  conjure  with 
in  that  country  which  he  saved  from  anarchy. 

Though  a  youth  in  appearance  and  in  years, 
Ward  was  a  seasoned  veteran  long  before  he  set 
out  on  his  last  campaign.  Before  he  was  five-and- 
twenty  he  had  had  enough  experiences  to  satisfy 
a  dozen  ordinary  men.  Coming  from  New  Eng 
land  seafaring  stock,  it  was  only  to  be  expected 
that  a  passion  for  adventure  should  course  through 
his  veins.  From  the  time  he  donned  short  trousers 
he  dreamed  of  a  cadetship  at  West  Point,  and  a 
commission  under  his  own  flag.  But  it  was  des 
tined  that  his  military  genius  should  profit  another 
country  than  his  own,  and  that  he  should  fight 
and  die  under  an  alien  banner.  His  father,  a  stern 
old  merchant  captain,  held  that  there  was  no 
training  for  a  boy  like  that  to  be  had  in  the  school 
of  the  sea,  and  so,  when  young  Ward  was  scarce 
half-way  through  his  teens,  he  was  packed  off 
aboard  a  sailing-vessel  bound  for  the  China  seas. 
By  the  time  he  was  twenty  he  held  a  first  mate's 

222 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

warrant,  and  had  paid  for  it  with  three  long  voy 
ages.  Joining  Garibaldi's  famous  Foreign  Legion, 
he  saw  service  under  that  great  soldier  in  the  war 
between  the  Republic  of  the  Rio  Grande  and 
Brazil.  Afterward  he  helped  the  young  Republic 
of  Uruguay  to  defeat  Manuel  Rosas,  the  Argen 
tine  dictator.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean 
War  he  obtained  a  lieutenant's  commission  in  a 
regiment  of  French  zouaves,  and  followed  the  tri 
color  until  the  Treaty  of  Paris  brought  that  bloody 
campaign  to  an  end.  Turning  his  steps  toward 
Latin  America  again,  he  joined  William  Walker 
in  his  ill-fated  Nicaraguan  adventure,  and  after 
that  leader's  execution  in  Honduras  he  offered 
his  sword  and  services  to  Juarez,  and  helped  to 
win  for  him  the  presidency  of  Mexico.  With  the 
triumph  of  Juarez,  peace  settled  for  a  time  upon 
the  western  hemisphere,  and  Ward,  finding  no 
market  for  his  military  talents,  was  driven  by 
financial  necessities  to  take  up  the  occupation  of 
a  ship-broker  in  New  York  City.  But  the  shackles 
of  trade  soon  proved  intolerable  to  this  man  of 
action.  He  was  like  a  race-horse  harnessed  to  a 
milk-wagon.  Though  his  talk  was  of  cargoes  and 
bottomry  and  tonnage,  his  thoughts  were  far 
away,  on  those  distant  seaboards  of  the  world 
where  history  was  in  the  making.  At  the  begin- 

223 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

ning  of  1859,  the  only  country  in  the  world  where 
righting  on  a  large  scale  was  going  on  was  China, 
which  was  being  devastated  by  the  great  Taiping 
Rebellion.  In  the  spring  of  that  year  Ward,  un 
able  to  longer  resist  the  call  to  action  which  was 
forever  sounding  in  his  ears,  turned  the  key  in 
the  door  of  his  New  York  office,  saddled  his  horse, 
and,  unaccompanied,  rode  across  the  continent  to 
San  Francisco,  where  he  booked  a  passage  for 
Shanghai.  It  was  no  random  adventure  which  he 
had  undertaken.  He  had  laid  his  plans  carefully 
and  knew  exactly  what  he  intended  doing.  Nor 
did  the  magnitude  of  his  project  dishearten  him. 
He  had  set  out  to  save  an  empire,  and  he  intended 
to  win  fame  and  fortune  in  doing  it. 

The  conditions  which  prevailed  in  China  be 
tween  1850  and  1863  can  be  compared  only  to  the 
French  Reign  of  Terror,  or  to  the  rule  of  the  Mahdi 
in  the  Sudan.  About  the  time  that  the  nineteenth 
century  was  approaching  the  half-way  mark,  a 
Chinese  schoolmaster  named  Hung-siu-Tseuen, 
inflamed  by  the  partially  comprehended  teachings 
of  Christian  missionaries,  had  inaugurated  a  prop 
aganda  to  overthrow  the  Confucian  religion,  and 
incidentally  the  reigning  dynasty.  There  speedily 
rallied  to  his  banners  all  the  floating  scoundrelism 
of  China.  In  1852  the  rebel  hordes  had  moved 

224 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

into  the  province  of  Hunan,  murdering,  pillaging, 
and  burning  as  they  went;  advanced  down  the  Kiang 
River  to  the  Yang-tse,  down  which  they  sailed, 
capturing  and  sacking  the  cities  on  its  banks. 
Making  Nanking  his  capital,  the  rebel  leader  as 
sumed  the  title  of  Tien  Wang,  or  "Heavenly  King," 
and  proclaimed  the  rule  of  the  Ping  Chao,  or  "Peace 
Dynasty,"  which,  with  the  prefix  Tai  ("great") 
gave  the  rebellion  its  name,  Taiping.  Wang's 
great  hordes  of  tatterdemalions,  flushed  with  their 
unbroken  series  of  successes,  gradually  overran 
the  silk  and  tea  districts,  the  richest  in  the  empire, 
threatened  Peking,  and  advanced  almost  to  the 
gates  of  Shanghai,  carrying  death  and  destruction 
over  fifteen  of  the  eighteen  provinces  of  China. 
Perhaps  it  will  give  a  better  idea  of  the  magnitude 
of  this  rebellion  when  I  add  that  reliable  authori 
ties  estimate  that  it  cost  China  two  billion  five  hun 
dred  million  dollar  sy  and  twenty  million  human  lives. 
By  the  autumn  of  1859  such  of  the  imperial  forces 
as  remained  loyal  had  been  whipped  to  a  stand 
still,  and  the  European  powers  having  interests 
in  China  had  their  work  cut  out  to  defend  the 
treaty  ports;  the  rebels  were  undisputed  masters 
of  all  Central  China;  the  rivers  were  literally 
choked  with  corpses,  and  the  smoke  of  burning 
cities  overhung  the  land.  The  atrocities  com- 

225 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

mitted  by  order  of  the  Taiping  leader  shocked 
even  the  dulled  sensibilities  of  China.  On  one 
occasion,  six  thousand  people,  suspected  of  an 
intention  to  desert,  were  gathered  in  the  pub 
lic  square  of  Nanking.  A  hundred  executioners 
stood  among  the  prisoners  with  bared  swords,  and, 
at  a  signal  from  the  Wang,  slashed  off  heads  until 
their  arms  were  weary,  and  blood  stood  inches 
deep  in  the  gutters.  Ward  had  indeed  chosen  a 
good  market  in  which  to  sell  his  services. 

Through  an  English  friend  in  the  Chinese  serv 
ice,  Ward  obtained  an  introduction  to  Wu,  the 
Taotoi  of  Shanghai,  and  to  a  millionaire  merchant 
and  mandarin  named  Tah  Kee.  The  plan  he 
proposed  was  as  simple  as  it  was  daring.  He 
offered  to  recruit  a  foreign  legion,  with  which  he 
would  defend  Shanghai,  and  at  the  same  time 
attack  such  of  the  Taiping  strongholds  as  were 
within  striking  distance,  stipulating  that  for  every 
city  captured  he  was  to  receive  seventy-five  thou 
sand  dollars  in  gold,  that  his  men  were  to  have 
the  first  day's  looting,  and  that  each  place  taken 
should  immediately  be  garrisoned  by  imperial 
troops,  leaving  his  own  force  free  for  further  opera 
tions.  Wu  on  behalf  of  the  government,  and  Tah 
Kee  as  the  representative  of  the  Shanghai  mer 
chants,  promptly  agreed  to  this  proposal,  and 

226 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

signed  the  contract.  They  had,  indeed,  every 
thing  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose.  It  was  also 
arranged  that  Tah  Kee  should  at  the  outset  fur 
nish  the  arms,  ammunition,  clothing,  and  commis 
sary  supplies  necessary  to  equip  the  legion. 
These  preliminaries  once  settled,  Ward  wasted  no 
time  in  recruiting  his  force,  for  every  day  was 
bringing  the  Taipings  nearer.  A  number  of  brave 
and  experienced  officers,  for  the  most  part  soldiers 
of  fortune  like  himself,  hastened  to  offer  him  their 
services,  General  Edward  Forester,  an  American, 
being  appointed  second  in  command.  The  rank 
and  file  of  the  legion  was  recruited  from  the  scum 
and  offscourings  of  the  East,  Malay  pirates,  Bur 
mese  dacoits,  Tartar  brigands,  and  desperadoes, 
adventurers,  and  fugitives  from  justice  from  every 
corner  of  the  farther  East  being  attracted  by  the 
high  rate  of  pay,  which  in  view  of  the  hazardous 
nature  of  the  service,  was  fixed  at  one  hundred 
dollars  a  month  for  enlisted  men,  and  proportion 
ately  more  for  officers.  The  non-commissioned 
officers,  who  were  counted  upon  to  stiffen  the  ranks 
of  the  Orientals,  were  for  the  most  part  veterans 
of  continental  armies,  and  could  be  relied  upon  to 
fight  as  long  as  stock  and  barrel  held  together. 
The  officers  carried  swords  and  Colt's  revolvers, 
the  latter  proving  terribly  effective  in  the  hand-to- 

227 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

hand  fighting  which  Ward  made  the  rule;  while 
the  men  were  armed  with  Sharp's  repeating  car 
bines  and  the  vicious  Malay  kris.  Everything  con 
sidered,  I  doubt  if  a  more  formidable  aggregation 
of  ruffians  ever  took  the  field.  Ward  placed  his 
men  under  a  discipline  which  made  that  of  the 
German  army  appear  like  a  kindergarten;  taught 
them  the  tactics  he  had  learned  under  Garibaldi, 
Walker,  and  Juarez;  and  finally,  when  they  were 
as  keen  as  razors  and  as  tough  as  rawhide,  he  en 
tered  them  in  battle  on  a  most  astonished  foe. 

The  first  city  Ward  selected  for  capture  was 
Sunkiang,  on  the  banks  of  the  Wusung  River, 
some  twenty-five  miles  above  Shanghai.  In 
choosing  this  particular  place  as  his  first  point  of 
attack,  Ward  showed  himself  a  diplomatist  as 
well  as  a  soldier,  for  it  was  one  of  the  seven  sacred 
cities  of  China,  and  to  it  had  been  wont  to  come 
thousands  of  pilgrims  from  the  most  distant  prov 
inces,  to  prostrate  themselves  in  the  temple  of 
Confucius,  the  oldest  and  most  revered  shrine  in 
the  empire.  Its  capture  by  the  Taipings  and  their 
desecration  of  its  altars  had  sent  a  thrill  of  horror 
through  the  imperialists,  such  as  was  not  even 
caused  by  the  loss  of  the  great  metropolis  of 
Nanking. 

Ward,  who  appreciated  the  necessity  of  winning 
228 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

the  recognition  and  confidence  of  the  higher  au 
thorities,  well  knew  that  the  regaining  of  this 
sacred  city  would  endear  him  to  the  religious  heart 
of  China  as  nothing  else  could  do.  But  Sunkiang, 
with  its  walls  twenty  feet  high  and  five  miles  in 
circumference,  and  with  a  garrison  of  five  thousand 
fanatics  to  defend  those  walls,  was  no  easy  nut 
to  crack  even  for  a  powerful  force  well  supplied 
with  artillery.  The  idea  of  its  being  taken  by 
Ward  and  his  five  hundred  desperadoes  was  pre 
posterous,  unthinkable,  absurd.  He  first  tried  the 
weapon  he  had  so  painstakingly  forged  on  a  July 
morning,  in  1860.  Just  as  his  European  critics  in 
Shanghai  had  prophesied,  the  attack  on  Sunkiang 
proved  the  most  dismal  of  failures.  His  stealthy 
approach  being  discovered  by  the  Taipings,  he 
was  greeted  with  such  a  withering  fire  upon  reach 
ing  the  walls  that,  being  without  supports,  and 
perceiving  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation,  he 
ordered  his  buglers  to  sound  the  retreat. 

But  Ward  was  one  of  those  rare  men  to  whom 
discouragements  and  disasters  are  but  incidents, 
annoying  but  not  disheartening,  in  the  day's 
work.  He  spent  a  fortnight  in  strengthening  the 
weakened  morale  of  his  force,  and  then  he  tried 
again,  making  his  onset  with  the  suddenness  and 
fury  of  a  tiger's  spring  just  at  break  of  day. 

229 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

Slipping  like  ghosts  through  the  grayness  of  the 
dawn,  Ward  and  his  men  stole  across  the  surround 
ing  rice-fields,  and  were  almost  under  the  city 
walls  before  the  Taiping  sentries  discovered  their 
approach.  As  the  first  rifle  cracked,  Ward  and 
one  of  his  lieutenants  raced  ahead  with  bags  of 
powder,  placed  them  beneath  the  main  gate  of 
the  city,  and  lighted  the  fuse.  Like  an  echo  of 
the  ensuing  explosion  rose  the  shrill  yell  of  the 
legionaries,  who  dashed  forward  like  sprinters  in 
a  race.  Instead  of  the  gates  being  blown  to  pieces 
as  they  had  expected,  they  found  that  they  had 
been  forced  apart  only  enough  for  one  man  to 
pass  at  a  time — and  on  the  other  side  of  that  door 
of  death  five  thousand  rebels  waited  eagerly  for 
the  first  of  the  attackers  to  appear.  '  "Come  on, 
boys!"  roared  Ward,  his  voice  rising  above  the 
crash  of  the  musketry,  "We're  going  in!"  and 
plunged  through  the  narrow  opening,  a  revolver 
in  each  hand.  Hard  on  his  heels  crowded  his 
legionaries.  Though  they  were  going  to  what  was 
almost  certain  death,  such  was  the  magnetism  of 
their  leader  that  not  a  man  hung  back,  not  a  man 
faltered.  Before  half  a  dozen  men  were  through 
they  were  attacked  by  hundreds,  but,  so  deadly 
was  the  fire  they  poured  in  with  their  repeaters, 
they  were  able  to  hold  off  the  defenders  until  the 

230 


C     03 

CS  JC 


-I 


tuo 

•Hi 

c^  i> 
r>  ex 
l>  o 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

whole  attacking  force  was  within  the  gate.  Then 
began  one  of  the  most  desperate  and  unequal  fights 
in  history.  The  key  to  the  city  was  the  howitzer 
battery,  which  was  stationed  on  the  top  of  the 
massive  main  gate,  forty  feet  above.  Up  the 
narrow  ramps  the  legionaries  fought  their  way, 
five  hundred  against  five  thousand,  hacking,  stab 
bing,  firing,  at  such  close  range  that  their  rifles 
set  fire  to  their  opponents'  clothing,  driving  their 
bayonets  into  the  human  wall  before  them  as  a 
field-hand  pitchforks  hay.  Wherever  there  was 
space  for  a  man  to  plant  his  feet  or  swing 
his  sword,  there  a  Taiping  was  to  be  found. 
The  passageway  was  choked  with  them,  but 
they  sullenly  gave  way  before  the  frenzy  of 
Ward's  attack  as  a  hillside  slowly  disintegrates 
before  the  stream  from  a  hydraulic  nozzle.  Ward 
was  wounded,  and  his  men  were  falling  about  him 
by  dozens,  but  those  that  were  left,  mad  with  the 
lust  of  battle,  fought  on,  until  with  a  final  surge 
and  cheer  they  reached  the  top,  and  the  position 
which  commanded  the  city  was  in  their  hands. 
Then  the  Taipings  broke  and  fled,  some  to  be 
overtaken  and  slaughtered  by  the  legionaries, 
others  throwing  themselves  into  the  streets  be 
low.  Bayoneting  the  rebel  gunners,  the  howitzers 
were  turned  upon  the  city,  raking  the  streets, 

231 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

sweeping  the  crowded  walls  and  house-tops,  and 
leaving  heaps  of  dead  and  dying  where  Taiping 
regiments  had  stood  before.  . 

For  four-and-twenty  hours  Ward  and  the  ex 
hausted  survivors  of  his  legion,  without  food  and 
without  water,  held  the  gate  in  the  face  of  the 
most  desperate  efforts  to  retake  it.  Then  the 
Chinese  reinforcements  for  which  he  had  asked 
tardily  arrived,  and  Sunkiang  was  an  Imperial 
city  again.  The  American  had  taken  the  first 
trick  in  the  great  game  he  was  playing.  It  was  at 
fearful  cost,  however,  for  of  the  five  hundred  men 
who  followed  him  into  action,  but  one  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  remained  alive,  and  of  these 
only  twenty-seven  were  without  wounds.  In 
other  words,  the  casualties  amounted  to  more  than 
ninety-four  per  cent  of  the  entire  force.  Ward  had 
ridden  out  of  Shanghai  a  despised  adventurer  to 
whom  the  foreign  officers  refused  to  speak.  He 
returned  to  that  city  a  hero  and  a  power  in  China. 
The  priesthood  acclaimed  him  as  the  saviour  of  the 
sacred  city;  the  emperor  made  him  a  Mandarin  of 
the  Red  Button;  the  merchants  of  Shanghai  voiced 
their  relief  by  adding  a  splendid  estate  to  the 
promised  reward  of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars. 
His  reputation  would  have  been  secure  if  he  had 
never  fought  another  battle. 

232 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

Leaving  Sunkiang  heavily  garrisoned  by  im 
perial  troops,  Ward  withdrew  to  Shanghai  for  the 
purpose  of  recruiting  his  shattered  forces.  Such 
a  glamour  of  romance  now  surrounded  the  legion 
that  Ward  was  fairly  besieged  by  European  as 
well  as  Oriental  volunteers.  Shortly  after  the 
capture  of  Sunkiang,  Ward  had  occasion  to  visit 
Shanghai  with  reference  to  the  care  of  his  wounded. 
While  riding  through  the  streets  of  the  city  he 
was  arrested  by  a  British  patrol,  and  despite  his 
protestations  that  he  was  an  officer  in  the  imperial 
service,  was  hustled  aboard  the  flag-ship  of  Admiral 
Sir  James  Hope,  which  lay  in  the  harbor,  and  was 
placed  in  close  confinement.  In  reply  to  his  in 
quiries  he  was  told  that  he  was  to  be  tried  for 
recruiting  British  man-o'-war's-men  for  service  in 
his  legion.  Though  the  arrest  was  high-handed 
and  unjustified,  there  seemed  no  immediate  pros 
pect  of  release,  for  the  American  consul-general 
refused  to  interfere  on  the  ground  that  Ward,  by 
taking  service  under  the  Chinese  government, 
had  forfeited  his  right  to  American  protection; 
the  imperial  authorities  were  powerless  to  take 
any  action;  while  the  British  were  notoriously 
fearful  of  the  dangerous  ascendancy  which  this 
American  might  gain  if  his  successful  career  was 
permitted  to  continue.  The  only  hope  for  Ward 

233 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

— and  for  China — lay  in  his  escape.  A  friend 
perfected  a  plan  of  flight.  While  visiting  Ward, 
who  was  confined  in  an  outside  cabin  of  the  flag 
ship,  with  a  marine  constantly  on  guard  at  the 
door,  he  synchronized  his  watch  with  that  of  the 
cabin  clock,  and  whispered  to  the  prisoner  that  he 
would  be  in  a  sampan  under  his  cabin  window  at 
precisely  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Taking  off 
his  coat  and  shoes  that  he  might  be  unhampered 
in  the  water,  Ward  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  berth 
with  his  eyes  on  the  face  of  the  clock.  Just  as 
the  minute-hand  touched  the  figure  II,  Ward 
made  a  dash  for  the  window  and  sprang  head 
foremost  through  the  sash,  for  the  windows  of  the 
old  fashioned  men-of-war  were  much  larger  than 
the  ports  of  modern  battle-ships.  He  had  hardly 
touched  the  water  before  he  was  pulled  aboard  a 
sampan,  which  disappeared  in  the  darkness  long 
before  the  flag-ship's  boats  could  be  manned  and 
lowered.  This  daring  exploit  enormously  in 
creased  Ward's  prestige  among  both  Chinese  and 
Europeans,  with  whom  the  British,  as  a  result  of 
their  insolent  and  overbearing  attitude,  were  in 
tensely  unpopular.  Some  days  later  Admiral 
Hope  sent  a  m'essage  to  Ward  requesting  an  inter 
view,  and,  upon  Ward  assuring  him  that  he  would 
no  longer  recruit  his  ranks  from  the  British  navy, 

234 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

the  old  sea  fighter  became  his  strong  partisan  and 
friend. 

With  his  ranks  once  more  repleted,  Ward  made 
preparations  for  a  second  venture.  This  time  it 
was  the  city  of  Sing-po  toward  which  he  turned; 
but  the  Taipings,  getting  wind  of  his  intentions, 
secretly  threw  an  overwhelming  force  into  the 
place  under  a  renegade  Englishman  named  Savage. 
Ward  was  without  artillery  with  which  to  breach 
the  walls,  and,  after  several  desperate  assaults,  in 
leading  which  he  was  severely  wounded,  he  was 
forced  to  retire.  Ten  days  later,  regardless  of  his 
wounds,  he  tried  again,  but  this  time  he  was  taken 
in  the  rear  by  a  Taiping  army  of  twenty  thousand 
men,  his  little  force  being  completely  surrounded. 
So  certain  was  the  rebel  leader  that  the  famous 
general  was  within  his  grasp,  that  he  consulted 
with  his  officers  as  to  what  methods  of  torture 
they  should  use  upon  him.  But  he  was  a  trifle 
premature,  for  Ward  struck  the  Taiping  cordon 
at  its  weakest  point,  fought  his  way  through,  and 
reached  Shanghai  with  a  loss  of  only  one  hundred 
men.  His  secret  agents  bringing  him  word  that 
the  powerful  force  from  which  he  had  just  escaped 
was  to  be  used  in  the  recapture  of  Sunkiang, 
Ward,  by  making  night  marches,  slipped  unper- 
ceived  into  that  city.  When  the  Taipings  at- 

235 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

tempted  to  carry  it  by  storm  a  few  days  later, 
instead  of  meeting  with  the  half-hearted  resist 
ance  which  they  had  grown  to  expect  from  Chinese 
garrisons,  they  were  astounded  to  see  the  hel- 
meted  figure  of  the  dreaded  American  upon  the 
walls,  and  were  greeted  with  a  blast  of  rifle  fire 
which  swept  away  their  leading  columns  and 
crumpled  up  their  army  as  effectually  as  though  it 
had  encountered  an  earthquake. 

Dangerously  weakened  by  half  a  dozen  wounds, 
Ward  was  reluctantly  compelled  to  go  to  Paris  in 
the  fall  of  1860  for  surgical  attention.  Back  at 
Shanghai  again  at  the  beginning  of  the  following 
summer,  he  found  that  the  Taipings,  emboldened 
by  his  absence,  were  flaunting  their  banner  within 
sight  of  the  city  walls.  From  end  to  end  of  the 
empire  there  existed  an  unparalleled  reign  of 
terror,  the  rebels  now  having  grown  so  strong 
that  they  demanded  the  recognition  of  the  Euro 
pean  powers.  Ward,  meanwhile,  had  become 
convinced  that  the  true  solution  of  the  problem 
lay  in  raising  an  army  of  natives,  rather  than  for 
eigners,  for  not  only  was  the  supply  of  Chinese 
unlimited,  but  his  experience  had  shown  him  that 
there  was  splendid  fighting  material  in  them  if 
they  were  properly  drilled  and  led.  When  he 
asked  permission  of  the  imperial  government  to 

236 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

raise  and  drill  a  Chinese  force,  therefore,  it  was 
gladly  granted. 

An  opportunity  to  put  his  theories  regarding  the 
fighting  capabilities  of  the  Chinese  to  a  test  soon 
came.  Learning  that  a  force  of  rebels,  ten  thou 
sand  strong,  was  advancing  in  the  direction  of 
Shanghai,  Ward  sallied  forth  from  his  head 
quarters  at  Sunkiang  with  two  thousand  five  hun 
dred  men,  struck  the  Taiping  army,  curled  it  up 
like  a  withered  leaf,  and  drove  it  a  dozen  miles 
into  the  interior.  Pressing  on,  he  captured  the 
city  of  Quan-fu-ling,  which  the  rebels  had  gar 
risoned  and  fortified,  and  with  it  several  hundred 
junks  loaded  with  supplies.  Throughout  these 
actions  his  Chinese  displayed  all  the  steadiness 
and  courage  of  European  veterans.  That  he 
showed  sound  judgment  in  pinning  his  faith  to 
natives  is  best  proved  by  the  fact  that  from  that 
time  on  he  never  met  with  a  reverse.  His  motto 
was  "Cold  steel,"  and  his  tactics  would  have  de 
lighted  the  old-time  sea  fighters,  for,  appreciating 
the  fact  that  few  Oriental  troops  are  capable  of 
remaining  steady  under  a  galling  long-range  fire, 
he  invpriably  threw  his  men  against  the  enemy  in 
an  overwhelming  charge,  and  finished  the  business 
at  close  quarters  with  the  bayonet. 

Moving  up  from  Sunkiang  with  a  thousand  of 

237 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

his  men,  Ward  joined  a  combined  force  of  French 
and  British  bluejackets,  who  had  with  them  a 
light  howitzer  battery,  in  an  attack  on  Kaschiaou, 
just  opposite  Shanghai,  which  was  the  city's  main 
source  of  supplies,  and  which  the  rebels  had  seized 
and  fortified.  Using  the  contingent  from  the  war 
ships  as  a  reserve,  Ward  and  his  Chinamen  did  the 
work  alone,  carrying  the  stockades  by  storm  and 
capturing  two  thousand  rebels,  as  a  result  of  which 
the  enemy  fell  back  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Shanghai.  So  strongly  impressed  were  the  British 
officers  with  the  behavior  of  Ward's  soldiery  that 
Sir  James  Mitchel,  the  commander-in-chief  on  the 
China  station,  strongly  urged  that  the  task  of  sup 
pressing  the  rebellion  be  placed  in  the  American's 
hands,  and  that  he  be  empowered  to  raise  his  force 
to  ten  thousand  men.  A  few  weeks  later  Ward 
received  an  imperial  rescript  acknowledging  his 
great  services  to  China,  and  appointing  him  an 
admiral-general  of  the  empire,  the  highest  rank 
that  the  emperor  could  bestow.  With  this  came 
the  authority  to  recruit  his  force  to  six  thousand 
men,  and  its  baptism,  by  imperial  order,  with  the 
sonorous  and  thrilling  title  of  Chun  Chen  Chun, 
or  the  Ever-Victorious  Army. 

As  the  barometer  of  Ward's  fortunes  steadily 
rose,  that  of  his  native   country  began  to   fall, 

238 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

the  dark  cloud  of  secession  hanging  threateningly 
over  the  land.  It  has  been  said  of  Ward  that  he 
denationalized  himself  by  marrying  a  Chinese 
wife  and  adopting  a  Chinese  name,  but  there  is 
no  doubt  that  it  was  only  his  stern  sense  of  duty 
which  kept  him  at  the  task  he  had  undertaken  in 
China  when  the  guns  of  Sumter  boomed  out  the 
beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  He  immediately 
sent  a  contribution  of  ten  thousand  dollars  to  the 
Union  war  fund,  however,  with  a  message  that  his 
services  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  North  whenever 
they  were  required.  At  the  time  of  the  Trent 
affair,  when  war  between  England  and  the  United 
States  was  momentarily  expected,  and  the  British 
in  China  had  laid  plans  to  seize  American  shipping 
and  other  property  in  the  treaty  ports,  Ward 
effected  a  secret  organization  of  American  sym 
pathizers  and  prepared  to  surprise  and  capture 
every  British  war-ship  and  merchant  vessel  in 
Chinese  waters.  In  view  of  his  success  in  equally 
daring  exploits,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  he  would  have  accomplished  even  so  startling 
a  coup  as  this. 

While  recruiting  his  army  to  its  newly  author 
ized  strength,  Ward  did  not  give  the  Taipings  a 
moment's  rest.  He  kept  several  flying  columns 
constantly  in  the  field,  attacking  the  rebels  at 

239 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

every  opportunity,  cutting  up  their  outposts,  har 
rying  their  pickets,  breaking  their  lines  of  com 
munication,  and  demoralizing  them  generally. 
One  day  Ward  would  be  reported  as  operating  in 
the  south,  and  the  Wang  would  draw  a  momentary 
breath  of  relief,  but  the  next  night,  without  the 
slightest  warning,  he  would  suddenly  fall  upon  a 
city  a  hundred  miles  to  the  northward  and  carry 
it  by  storm.  By  such  aggressive  tactics  as  these 
Ward  struck  fear  to  the  heart  of  the  Taiping 
leader,  who  saw  the  despotism  he  had  built  up 
crumbling  about  him  before  the  American's 
smashing  blows.  It  was  said,  indeed,  that  the 
mere  sight  of  Ward's  white  helmet  in  the  van  of 
a  storming  party  was  more  effective  than  a  brigade 
of  infantry.  With  a  thousand  men  of  his  own 
corps  and  six  hundred  royal  marines  he  attacked 
and  captured  Tsee-dong,  a  walled  city  of  consider 
able  strength,  and  cleared  the  rebels  from  the  sur 
rounding  region  as  though  with  a  fine-tooth  comb. 
The  town  of  Wong-kadza  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  Taipings,  and  Ward  decided  to  capture  it. 
General  Staveley,  who  had  succeeded  Sir  James 
Mitchel  in  command  of  the  British  forces,  offered 
to  co-operate  with  him.  It  was  agreed  that  they 
should  rendezvous  outside  the  town.  Ward 
reached  there  first  with  six  hundred  of  his  men. 

240 


,  Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

Without  waiting  for  the  British  to  come  up,  he 
ordered  his  bugles  to  sound  the  charge,  and  after 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  desperate  fighting  he  car 
ried  the  stockade,  and  the  rebels  broke  and  ran, 
Ward's  men  killing  more  of  them  in  the  pursuit 
than  they  themselves  numbered.  When  General 
Staveley  arrived  a  few  hours  later  he  was  chagrined 
to  see  the  imperial  standard  flying  over  the  city 
and  to  find  that  the  impetuous  American  had 
done  the  work  and  reaped  the  glory.  The  allied 
forces  now  pressed  on  to  the  Taiping  stronghold 
of  Tai-poo,  which  was  held  by  a  strong  and  well- 
armed  garrison.  While  the  British  engaged  the 
attention  of  the  rebels  in  front  with  a  fierce  artil 
lery  fire,  Ward  and  his  Chinamen  made  a  detour 
to  the  rear  of  the  city,  and  were  at  and  over  the 
walls  almost  before  the  garrison  realized  what  had 
happened. 

The  Ever-Victorious  Army  now  numbered 
nearly  six  thousand  men.  It  was  well  drilled  and 
under  an  iron  discipline;  it  was  fairly  well  armed; 
it  was  magnificently  officered;  it  was  emboldened 
with  repeated  successes.  The  man  who  was  the 
maker  and  master  of  such  a  force  might  well  go  a 
long  way.  That  Ward  dreamed  of  eventually 
making  himself  dictator  of  China  there  can  be 
but  little  doubt.  Louis  Napoleon,  remember, 

241 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

climbed  to  a  throne  on  the  bayonets  of  his  soldiers. 
By  this  time  the  American  soldier  of  fortune  had 
become  by  long  odds  the  most  popular  figure  in 
the  empire;  the  army  was  with  him  to  a  man; 
he  possessed  the  confidence  of  the  great  man 
darins  and  merchant  princes;  and  he  had  to  his 
credit  an  almost  unparalleled  succession  of  vic 
tories.  Dictator  of  the  East!  What  American 
ever  had  a  more  ambitious  dream  and  was  within 
such  measurable  distance  of  realizing  it?  It  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  had  Ward  lived,  the 
whole  history  of  the  Orient  would  have  been 
changed,  and  China,  rather  than  Japan,  would 
doubtless  have  held  the  balance  of  power  in  the 
Farther  East. 

In  April,  1862,  Ward,  the  Viceroy  Lieh,  and  the 
French  and  British  commanders  held  a  council  of 
war  in  Shanghai.  Ward  suggested  a  plan  of  cam 
paign  designed  to  break  the  Taiping  power  in 
that  part  of  China  for  good  and  all.  Briefly  put, 
his  scheme  was  to  capture  a  semicircle  of  cities 
within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  of  Shanghai  and  the 
coast.  This  would  result  in  the  rebels  being  held 
within  their  own  lines  by  a  cordon  of  bayonets, 
and,  as  they  had  utterly  devastated  the  regions 
they  had  overrun,  would  mean  starvation  for 
them.  Thus  cut  off  from  the  seaboard,  Ward 

242 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

argued,  they  would  be  unable  to  obtain  ammu 
nition  and  supplies,  and  the  rebellion  would  soon 
wither.  The  series  of  operations  was  carried  out 
as  planned,  Ward's  corps  being  reinforced  by 
three  thousand  French  and  British.  It  ended  in 
the  capture,  in  rapid  succession,  of  the  cities  of 
Kah-ding,  Sing-po,  Najaor,  and  Tsaolin.  In  every 
case  Ward  insisted  on  being  given  the  post  of 
honor;  he  and  his  Chinamen,  who  fought  with  an 
appalling  disregard  for  life,  carrying  the  defences 
at  the  bayonet's  point,  while  his  European  allies 
covered  his  advance  with  artillery  fire  and  sup 
ported  his  whirlwind  attacks.  Leaving  garrisons 
barely  large  enough  to  hold  the  captured  cities, 
he  pushed  on  by  forced  marches  to  Ning-po,  which 
was  a  large  and  strongly  fortified  city.  Twice  his 
storming  parties  were  driven  back.  The  third 
time  the  men,  exhausted  by  the  continuous  fight 
ing  in  which  they  had  been  engaged  and  the  long 
marches  they  had  been  called  upon  to  perform, 
momentarily  faltered  in  the  face  of  the  terrible 
fire  which  greeted  them.  Instantly  Ward  ordered 
the  recall  sounded,  formed  them  into  line  within 
easy  rifle-range  of  the  city  walls,  and  calmly  put 
them  through  the  manual  of  arms  with  as  much 
precision  as  though  they  were  on  parade,  while  a 
storm  of  bullets  whistled  round  them,  and  men 

243 


Gentlemen  Rovers 

were  momentarily  dropping  in  the  ranks.  Then, 
his  men  once  more  in  hand,  the  bugles  screamed 
the  charge  and  the  yellow  line  roared  on  to  victory. 

Ward  gave  his  last  order  to  advance — he  had 
forgotten  how  to  give  any  other — on  September 
21,  1862.  With  a  regiment  of  his  men  he  was 
about  to  attack  Tse-Ki,  a  small  fortified  coast 
town  a  few  miles  from  Ning-po.  With  his  habitual 
contempt  for  danger  he  was  standing  with  General 
Forester,  his  chief  of  staff,  well  in  advance  of  his 
men,  inspecting  the  position  through  his  field- 
glasses.  Suddenly  he  clapped  his  hand  to  his 
breast.  "I've  been  hit,  Ed!"  he  exclaimed,  and 
fell  forward  into  the  arms  of  his  friend.  Very 
tenderly  his  devoted  yellow  men  carried  him 
aboard  the  British  war-ship  Hardy,  which  was 
lying  in  the  harbor,  but  the  naval  surgeons  shook 
their  heads  when  an  examination  showed  that  the 
bullet  had  passed  through  his  lungs.  "Don't 
mind  me,"  whispered  Ward.  "Take  the  city." 
So  Forester,  heavy  at  heart,  ordered  forward  the 
storming  parties.  That  night  the  great  captain 
died.  The  last  sound  he  heard  was  his  Chinamen's 
shrill  yell  of  triumph. 

With  extraordinary  solemnity  the  dead  soldier 
was  laid  to  rest  in  the  temple  of  Confucius  in  Sun- 
kiang,  the  most  sacred  shrine  in  China  and  the 

244 


Cities  Captured  by  Contract 

very  spot  where  he  had  established  his  head 
quarters  after  his  first  great  victory.  His  body, 
which  was  followed  to  the  grave  by  imperial  vice 
roys,  European  admirals,  generals,  and  consuls, 
and  Chinese  mandarins,  was  borne  between  the 
silent  lines  of  his  Ever-Victorious  Army.  By 
order  of  the  emperor  his  name  was  placed  in  the 
pantheon  of  the  gods.  Temples  to  commemorate 
his  victories  were  built  at  Sing-po  and  Ning-po, 
and  a  magnificent  mausoleum  was  erected  in  his 
honor  in  Sunkiang.  In  it  the  yellow  priests  of 
Confucius  still  burn  incense  before  his  tomb.  In 
all  his  history  there  can  be  found  no  hint  of  dis 
honor,  no  trace  of  shame.  He  was  a  great  soldier 
and  a  very  gallant  gentleman,  but  he  has  been 
forgotten  by  his  own  people.  To  paraphrase  the 
lines  of  Matthew  Arnold : 

"Far  hence  he  lies, 
Near  some  lone  Chinese  town, 
And  on  his  grave,  with  shining  eyes, 
The  Eastern  stars  look  down." 


245 


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